


At Heart

by HashtagLEH



Series: Something More [2]
Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Adult Peter Parker, Cinnamon Roll Peter Parker, College Student Peter Parker, Even though Tom Holland is better, Gen, Good Friend Ned Leeds, I don't want to spoil too much but nothing actually happens, Maximoffs Are Bad at Being Bad, Mentioned Rape Allegations, Ned Leeds is a Good Bro, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pietro Maximoff Lives, Pietro Maximoff Redemption, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Matt Murdock, Protective Ned Leeds, Protective Peter Parker, Protective Pietro Maximoff, Protective Wade Wilson, Protective Wanda Maximoff, Road Trips, Secret Identity Fail, Timeline What Timeline, Wanda Maximoff Needs a Hug, Wanda Maximoff Redemption, Worried Ned Leeds, barely, but also I'm using Andrew Garfield's spidey, but let's just say that Wanda is not very nice at first, but like it's talked about, cherry picking from canon, everyone is protective, except when they're not, if you read the first fic we've been over this, it's really not major but I don't want people getting upset that there was no warning, or anything close to it, she does not have anything to do with actual raping, so be careful with yourselves, to be clear:
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:54:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25979326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HashtagLEH/pseuds/HashtagLEH
Summary: “Where you are does not matter – we are not staying here,” the woman said. “But I am Wanda. This is my brother Pietro. You may have your powers, but we have ours, and if you try to escape, you will regret it because our powers are greater than yours.”“Got it, got it,” Peter hummed, hiding his nervousness under his usual veneer of playfulness that he had when he went out as Spidey. “So, uh…what do you guys want, exactly?”Wanda’s eyes began to glow brighter, and a red mist began to swirl around her hands as she took a step toward him. “Revenge.”
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Peter Parker, Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Wade Wilson, Pietro Maximoff & Wanda Maximoff, pre-Peter Parker/Wade Wilson
Series: Something More [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1483355
Comments: 149
Kudos: 400





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea where this came from. I meant to only write short little oneshots for the rest of this verse, but then when I wanted to introduce the Maximoff twins I was like…but that could so _easily_ be longer. And here we are.
> 
> I don't have any more idea than you do where this fic is going to go. But the Maximoffs will have redemption in the end and all will be well. Everything in between? Guessing game. We will see as I write it. XD
> 
> ALSO, although this is part 2 of the series, and there is an obvious time jump from the end of the last fic, I won't be posting in chronological order at this point. I will reorder the series when I need to, but I write what I'm interested in. So some of those scenes that I know you guys are waiting for are NOT forgotten - I will write them at some point haha. But this idea hit and I had to write it. 
> 
> Plans right now are that Wade and Peter are not together yet, but that may change. Idk. I have plans for when they get together, but I might change my mind. We shall all find out together. XD
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Peter held back the groan that wanted to escape as he gradually began to wake up. His head was pounding, and that was never a good sign. Last he remembered, he hadn’t been in pain, so the fact that he was waking up because it felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to his skull meant that he was probably _not_ in a friendly environment. He didn’t want to alert his kidnappers that he was awake; he needed to get as much information as he could that they might let slip when they thought he was incapacitated. So, remaining silent and keeping his breathing even and deep it was.

Despite what one might think, he didn’t actually get into these situations too much. Being kidnapped, that is. His Spidey sense typically warned him in advance before any would-be kidnappers got close enough to succeed, and it was only when he was especially distracted or stressed that he was caught. This was only the third time he’d been kidnapped, and considering the type of villains he typically dealt with, Peter had to be pretty proud of himself for that.

But…he hadn’t been stressed _or_ distracted, Peter slowly realized, thoughts moving slow like molasses as he tried to remember how he’d gotten here. He had been in the library with his roommate Ned, who was also in his biochemistry class. Ned had left to meet up with some girl – MJ, Peter thought her name was? He hadn’t met her yet, but Ned said she was cool and Peter thought Ned was pretty cool so she must be too.

And then…the fire alarm had gone off? Or Peter thought it did, but as he grabbed his backpack to evacuate like a good, obedient student, he became aware that no one else in the library seemed to notice anything, still going about their studying and quiet whispering and flirting.

For some reason, Peter had shrugged this off at the time and gone to the exit anyway. He had stepped outside into the cloudy afternoon, looking around the quad…

His memory stopped there. And that was concerning, because he couldn’t remember having even the slightest inkling of his Spidey sense telling him something was off, and yet how could he have been taken in broad daylight on the ESU campus? That spoke to more than professionals, it screamed more…

 _Mutant_ , Peter realized, as sound finally began to creep into his ears, and he heard voices in the room with him. He had just enough time to catalogue the fact that it was a man and a woman, younger by the sound of it, before they both cut off abruptly.

“You are awake,” the woman said, voice cold and ringing with some kind of European accent that Peter couldn’t immediately identify. “We know – you can open your eyes.”

“That’s okay,” Peter said, words a little slurry. “’M kind of afraid of hurting my head more if I open my eyes, so I’ll just keep ‘em closed for now.”

That bit was true, but he also remembered a piece of information that he’d picked up from somewhere he couldn’t recall, that if he saw the kidnappers’ faces that he would almost certainly be killed, because they needed to be able to get away. He didn’t want to give these strangers (and they _were_ strangers; he didn’t recognize their voices at _all_ ) any more reasons to hurt him.

“We are not going to hurt you,” the woman said, sounding annoyed but also with a thread of upset. “Just open your damn eyes.”

Peter would have protested, but at that moment, the pounding in his head subsided so abruptly that his eyes blinked open in his startlement. He peered in the direction of the voice, seeing the young woman that couldn’t have been more than a year or so older than him, with a man about the same age standing just behind her, watching him with eyes that seemed to glow like blue ice.

“Did _you_ do that?” he asked the woman, somewhat suspicious at the sudden lack of pain in his head, but not ungrateful.

“I did,” she said with a blink. Peter noted vaguely that her eyes seemed to glow in the same way as the man’s, except that her eyes seemed almost red, matching the leather coat she wore. Her hair was dark brown, while his was shot through with white, only dark at the roots. There was really nothing obvious to suggest that they were related, but Peter thought their faces seemed shaped the same, and their noses were almost identical, and so he would guess that they were siblings.

“Well, thanks,” Peter sighed, moving his neck from side to side to stretch it from where it had cramped after however long he had been unconscious. He was seated in a metal chair, with what seemed to be reinforced cuffs locking him in place. That didn’t bode well for him, that they had known to reinforce his bonds – it suggested that these strangers knew he was Spiderman, and how did they figure that out? Who else had figured it out without him knowing about it?

He shoved that aside for now though – he had other problems to focus on right now. Namely, where was he, who were these people, and what did they want with him (considering the fact that he had never met them before)?

“Well, I’m Peter,” he said pleasantly, leaning back in his chair easily like they were at college orientation, meeting other freshmen before the first day of classes. “I’m from Queens, I have a big family, and I’m majoring in Biophysics.”

“We know who you are, Peter Parker,” the woman said, face transforming into a sneer. “The beloved child of the Avengers, protected by the _Merchant of Death_ himself, and secretly Spiderman.”

Peter vaguely noted that her disgust – matched by that of her brother’s – got worse when naming Tony by the moniker he hated so much, the one that came up every few months when gossip rags got bored and decided to rehash who Tony used to be. It was enough to tell him that their grudge wasn’t against him or any of the rest of the Avengers, but Tony specifically.

Peter had never been taken to get at someone else before. It was a new experience.

“Well, you have me at a disadvantage,” Peter said, raising an eyebrow. “You apparently know everything about me, and I don’t even know your names. Or where I am. Help a guy out?”

“Where you are does not matter – we are not staying here,” the woman said. “But I am Wanda. This is my brother Pietro. You may have your powers, but we have ours, and if you try to escape, you will regret it because our powers are greater than yours.”

“Got it, got it,” Peter hummed, hiding his nervousness under his usual veneer of playfulness that he had when he went out as Spidey. “So, uh…what do you guys want, exactly?”

Wanda’s eyes began to glow brighter, and a red mist began to swirl around her hands as she took a step toward him. “Revenge.”

“Okay, revenge, cool cool, no doubt,” Peter stammered. “Uh…so how does this work? Because you said you weren’t going to hurt me but if it’s revenge you’re talking about I’m just not sure how that will work out because there’s not a lot of ways that can be interpreted. And revenge for what? I’ve never met either of you, let alone do anything worthy of revenge…”

“You talk too much,” Pietro interrupted, speaking up for the first time.

“Yeah, I’ve kind of gotten into that habit,” Peter rambled. “I was like, nonverbal for a while and my therapist tells me not to keep my thoughts inside because then I could get into that habit again and eventually be nonverbal again. I don’t know how true that is, because it was a trauma based thing, not a habit thing, but I try to do what she says anyway because she’s the one that studied and went to school for it, not me. Maybe it’s a fear tactic on her part? I dunno – I’m into the tubes and vials-type sciences, not the ‘squishy’ ones, as Tony likes to call them.”

“Stark is why you are here,” Wanda cut him off before he could go further, as Peter had half suspected she would when he brought up the billionaire. “He ruined our lives; he killed our _parents_. Now we are taking what is important to _him_.”

Peter’s eyebrow creased at that. “Okay, you’re not making much sense,” he admitted. “I mean, yeah Tony cares about me, but not enough that it would ruin his _life_. He has the rest of the Avengers as his family. Also, you just said you wouldn’t hurt me? I don’t know how you intend to get me out of his life forever unless you’re like, going to kill me. Shit, do you have a way of killing me painlessly? Is that what you meant? Because I have to say, _not_ a fan of that plan.”

“We are _not_ killing you,” Pietro said, giving his sister something of a stern glare, like he was convincing her not to at the same time that he was assuring Peter that they wouldn’t. She nodded in agreement, though it did seem a bit reluctant, at least to Peter’s eyes.

“We did not know that you were Spiderman until we were out of the state,” Wanda admitted grudgingly. “We thought you were just the Avengers’ favorite child; we would not have taken you, had we known.”

Peter squinted at her. “Why not?” he asked blankly. “You said it yourself, you’re stronger than me – in different ways, I guess, but you clearly have no problem with improvisation.” He nodded demonstratively at his bonds.

Pietro looked amused at that, for some reason, and started, “Because Wanda has a cr…”

“Silence!” Wanda hissed at her brother, looking furious, though the red mist was absent from her hands, leading Peter to believe that it was more akin to sibling fury – i.e., not too serious. A rattle of words in a language Peter tentatively identified as Sokovian, and Pietro subsided, though he was still smirking a little at his sister as she turned back to Peter.

“Spiderman provides a lot of hope to the people of New York,” she said primly. “We would not want to take that away from them in pursuit of our revenge to one man.”

“Iron Man provides more hope than I _ever_ could, though,” Peter insisted. “I’m just your friendly neighborhood guy – he fights for peace all over the _world_. Trying to get revenge on him will hurt more people than it helps.”

“Someone else can be Iron Man,” Wanda dismissed. “It is just a suit. Tony Stark is who we have issue with.”

“Tony Stark _is_ Iron Man,” Peter said, suddenly fierce in defense of the man who just wanted to do _good_. He _knew_ how much it bothered Tony, who he once was, and how much he tried to help everyone, and how it often came off the wrong way to some, like he was only doing it for attention or for more money. “You can’t have one without the other. And your little revenge plot _isn’t_ going to work.”

“This conversation grows dull,” Wanda said suddenly, raising her hand as red mist began to swirl around it. “Good night, Peter Parker.”

The mist filled his eyes until red was all he could see – and then, with hardly a pause, the red spiraled down into black.

***

“We cannot kill him,” Pietro told Wanda in their native language as she moved the unconscious boy into the back of the sedan they’d lifted from a small town just inside the Pennsylvania border. The reinforced metal of the chair had been reformed into handcuffs around his wrists, which attached to a belt of the same material around his waist. Peter Parker would be unable to escape, they were certain of it.

“Of course not,” Wanda scoffed as she closed the car door with enough force that it forced the boy’s knees to bend so that his feet were in the car. “But what do you propose we _do_? We cannot let him back to his _family_ ”—she sneered at the word—“in Stark Tower. They would come after us and destroy us for even _daring_ to take him away.”

“We should have waited,” Pietro said, vibrating in place as his sister set to switching out the license plates again. “We did not need to get revenge on Stark through his _child_ in the first place. The fact that he is Spiderman should not have made any bearing on our actions.”

“I certainly did not expect Spiderman to be a _child_ ,” Wanda muttered resentfully, though who that resentment was directed toward was unclear.

“Wanda!” Pietro barked. “Are you even _listening_ to me? What are we going to do with him?”

“I don’t know!” Wanda snapped, turning on her heel to face him, abandoning the license plate for a moment. “All I know is that we need to get _far_ away from New York before they realize that he is gone. We can figure out more as we go.”

“That is how we got _into_ this mess!” Pietro protested, throwing up his hands in exasperation. “We flew by the seat of our pants, and we were caught off guard, and now we are in over our heads! We need a _plan_ , or we are going to be either dead, or spending the rest of our lives in some American prison that its citizens don’t even know about, or being used for our powers the same way Hydra tried to use us!”

“You keep saying we need a plan,” Wanda snarled, “So I ask again, brother, what do you propose we do? Since all of my planning is apparently terrible, let’s see _your_ ideas!”

Pietro paused at that, biting his lip as he thought furiously of something, _anything_ that might get them out of this _mess_ that they’d fallen into. Wanda allowed him only a moment before she nodded once, almost vindictively, and went back to the license plates.

“You could look into his mind again,” Pietro proposed after another few moments. “Find his memories of us, block them so that he could not access them. We could return him back to his university and people would think he just got drunk and lost time. We would be safe.”

“And what of our revenge on Stark?” Wanda reminded him. “Assuming I would even be able to make him forget things, what recourse would we have then, without his favorite child?”

“You could remove memories of Stark as well,” Pietro suggested. “It would be like Stark losing his child anyway, but we would not have to kill him. You could even plant memories of Stark hurting him somehow, so even when they met again the child would want nothing to do with him.”

Wanda paused, and slowly a smile spread across her face. She looked back at Pietro.

“That is positively _diabolical_ ,” she said, but her expression was delighted at the idea. “I think it may even work.”

She looked over at the unconscious boy lying curled up in the back seat. Peter Parker had no _idea_ what was in store for him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FROM HERE ON OUT, CHECK THE TAGS FOR TRIGGER WARNINGS BEFORE EVERY CHAPTER
> 
> I'm not going to be giving details in the notes like I usually do unless there's something super specific to warn for that a tag doesn't cut it. If I miss any warnings, let me know so I can tag for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, less than 24 hours later, a new chapter. Don't expect this often, lol. I was just too excited and wrote more. ;)
> 
> I get the feeling from some of the reviews that some of you haven't read the first fic in this series. And I don't think we're going to get into details that are too important from the last fic, but I would still recommend reading that first just so there's a little bit of background knowledge going into this.
> 
> For those who haven't read it and don't plan to: in this 'verse, Peter's relationship with Tony is not the normal Irondad/Spiderson that we see most often. His relationship to Tony is more akin to that of an uncle or just the cool cousin. His 'dads' here are primarily Bucky, and Steve to a lesser extent. He lives in the Tower with all of them, and is seen as the little brother of most of them, so they're all very protective, but if Peter's memories of Tony were ever compromised, it would not be the end of the world because he's not the focus here. Peter has a wider network of support in this 'verse, and it's going to grow when Wanda and Pietro get bumped up to honorary brother and sister positions. (That may take a while though, because I want to avoid it looking like Stockholm Syndrome and that takes more work haha.)
> 
> But also with that in mind, don't worry. The bad guys never win. ;) (And Wanda and Pietro aren't really bad - they're just hurting and desperate. It will get better!)
> 
> Anyway, I hope I cleared that up, but if y'all have any questions, feel free to ask. :)

The sunlight was what woke Peter up, shining so that the insides of his eyelids looked red. This time, he had no headache, and he knew that the woman – Wanda, he remembered – had some kind of mind whammying powers that meant she probably knew he was waking up even before he became aware. So, he didn’t bother with pretending to still be unconscious, especially when he realized that he was _moving_.

His eyes snapped open, and he winced as the sunlight hit his eyes, trying to adjust to it quickly, and he sat up, realizing that he was in the back seat of a car, and his wrists were bound together at his waist.

“Rise and shine!” Pietro said cheerfully from where he was sitting in the passenger seat. Peter looked over to see that despite the affected cheerfulness, the man was watching him with silvery eyes bright not only from his mutant powers but with a dangerous sort of alertness.

“Hi,” Peter responded, blinking and scrunching his eyes in lieu of rubbing his eyes, as the cuffs prevented movement like that. “Time ’s it?”

“Just past seven,” Pietro reported after a quick glance at the clock readout on the dash. “We just got breakfast! Hope you like sausage – just about every breakfast food at McDonald’s has it.”

“Sausage is fine,” Peter said agreeably.

“Good, because I drank your smoothie,” Pietro told him unashamedly. “You were taking too long to wake up.”

“It wasn’t like I _chose_ to go to sleep,” Peter said dryly. Pietro shrugged and passed him the bag, which Peter took with his awkwardly bound hands and then stared at, unsure how to proceed.

“How am I supposed to eat this, exactly?” Peter finally said, feeling very tired.

Pietro scowled immediately at this. “We are _not_ freeing you,” he told him, voice dark.

“Yeah, I kinda figured,” Peter shot back with increasing irritation. “But unless you plan to feed me directly, I am left to assume that you only put the food in front of me to taunt me with the idea of it, having no intention of giving me anything with which to survive on whatever trip we’re taking. Which, I have to say, is an ill-thought plan, due to my powers. I can go a _long_ time without food, and it seems to me you want to get rid of me fairly quickly. So, what’s the plan here?”

“For god’s sake, Pietro, just feed him the damn food,” Wanda said, exasperated as she kept her eyes trained on the practically deserted interstate while she drove.

“Why don’t _you_ feed him?” Pietro protested. “I’m a better driver than you, anyway.”

“As _if_ ,” Wanda scoffed derisively. “Besides, it’s my day to drive. Wait your turn, and feed the boy.”

“Look, I don’t even know where we are,” Peter tried. “You could pull off at the next exit, loosen the cuffs, and let me eat. I’m not going to try to escape – somehow I don’t think I would get very far, anyway.”

“I really wouldn’t put anything past you,” Pietro said, voice dry as a desert, looking him up and down speculatively.

Peter raised an eyebrow, looking at Wanda through the rearview mirror “And you can’t use your”—he waved his fingers—“mind-whammy powers to stop me before I got anywhere?”

Wanda glanced at Pietro, who looked back with a stubborn scowl on his face.

“Look guys, if you’re gonna let me eat, it’s pretty clear it’s not going to be with your help,” Peter said after a few moments of tense silence. “So either let me loose enough to eat it myself, or just toss it. Either way, I can’t eat like this.”

Peter hoped that they would see reason and pull over for a few minutes, because he honestly didn’t plan to try to escape – he just wanted food. His stomach felt like a gaping maw that protested at the lack of food in – he calculated quickly – over fifteen hours, and he didn’t want to get to a point where the rash appeared on his skin, where his head always had a dull ache, where he would stop healing quickly from any injuries he sustained. It was much harder to get back to being healthy than it was losing that healthiness through lack of nutrition.

(Not that McDonald’s could exactly be considered _nutritious_ , but Peter had a certain fondness for it, after Steve and Bucky had brought him some while he’d been homeless.)

Wanda’s eyes met his in the mirror, and Peter thought she looked – startled? He wasn’t sure how to interpret the look on her face, but a moment later she looked back at the road and said shortly, “ _Fine_.”

A short ten minutes later, Peter sat outside on a crumbling curb in what used to be a populated town but now looked run down and probably abandoned. Peter remembered the Disney movie _Cars_ , and thought that it looked more run down than Radiator Springs in the beginning of the movie. The wind was cold and brisk, despite the jacket Peter still had on from the day before.

But he didn’t care about that, because he had blessed _food_ in his lap, and Wanda was watching him while Pietro kept an eye on their surroundings. It was a bit awkward, because Peter could only hear the wind and the sound of his chewing, but he was glad that at least they didn’t _seem_ to want him to die a slow and painful death.

“So, what’s the plan?” Peter asked them curiously. “Since it seems the discovery of my alter ego changed things. What are you going to do with me?”

“Why do you care?” Wanda said, arching a perfectly shaped eyebrow at him. “You can do nothing to stop it.”

Peter shrugged, not letting on visibly how uneasy her words made him. She probably knew it, anyway. He wondered what the full extent of her powers were – and Pietro, for that matter, as he had seen _none_ of his powers, but his senses told him that he definitely had them.

“Curiosity, I suppose,” he replied, opening a burrito after finishing his sandwich. “It’s my fatal flaw. It’s what turned me into Spiderman, even. But can I just say that this is honestly the best time that you could do this? It’s a Friday, and we have Thanksgiving break all of next week, and I finished all my school work yesterday, so I’m really not missing anything important. So my grades are safe. I mean, assuming that I’m back by next Monday. I suppose I really shouldn’t assume.”

“We do not know how long you will be gone,” Wanda said, as though talking about a vacation rather than a kidnapping. “When you return, you will not remember us.”

Peter paused his eating, tilting his head at her. “So your powers have something to do with memories?” he asked her, ever curious. “Or is it my whole mind that you have access to? Some kind of manipulation? Do you get rid of memories completely, or just block them behind a wall?”

Wanda stared at him for a moment, and her eyes glowed briefly red in a way that Peter was growing increasingly certain meant she was using whatever powers she had. When the red faded back to the usual haunting reddish-brown, she looked perplexed.

“You are asking out of true curiosity, not as a way of circumventing what is inevitable,” she said confusedly. “Why? Don’t you wish to find some way of escaping it?”

Peter shrugged, taking another bite of his burrito. “Sure I do, but I figure it’s unavoidable at this point, so why bother? You’ll do whatever your plan is, put me back in New York, and then whenever my family sees me, they’ll know something is wrong and fix it.”

Wanda’s face hardened at these words, and the faintest wisps of scarlet began to dance at her fingertips, seemingly without her control or will.

“Your _family_ ,” she spat the word scornfully, “can do _nothing_ against what I am going to do to you, and you had best lose your hope from that avenue immediately.”

Peter slowly lowered his hands to his lap, still holding the last half of his burrito, caught in the certainty of her words. He didn’t want to spook her into doing something that might be painful, but he had to know, “What is it you’re going to do?”

A malevolent smile crossed her face, and she crouched down into a squat no more than a foot away from him. Peter distantly noticed that she smelled like cinnamon and electricity, but it didn’t detract from her threatening, menacing aura in the slightest.

“I am going to remove your fond memories of those Avengers you love so dearly,” she said, almost casual were it not for the excitement in her eyes at his wariness. “I am going to replace them with feelings of fear, of pain. You won’t want to be around them.”

“They’ll know something is wrong,” Peter tried dissuading her. “It’s not going to work, getting your revenge.”

“But if I direct all that fear toward Stark?” she said, not discouraged in the least, only seeming _more_ excited as her mind worked, coming up with ideas on the spot. “There are so _many_ ways to make you afraid of them – I think I’ll turn it toward Stark, in particular. How do you think the rest of the Avengers will react, if they found out that he had assaulted you?”

The look in her eyes conveyed her meaning perfectly clearly, and Peter’s stomach dropped even as he sputtered, “He would _never_! Besides the fact that he’s with Pepper, he’s not even _capable_ of committing that kind of…of _evil_!”

“Oh, Stark is capable of a _lot_ of evil,” Wanda said scornfully. “And soon enough, the whole world will know it. If the others don’t kill him themselves, he will surely go to prison for the rest of his life for what they believe he did to you.”

“Do you even know _how_ to convince my brain that – _that_ happened?” Peter didn’t know why exactly he asked the question, only trying to come up with a way to convince her _not_ to do something so _horrible_ , but he noticed when a trace of uncertainty crossed her eyes and it urged him to continue on that same vein. “I mean, there’s clearly a _reason_ I’m going on this cross-country road trip with you, and it’s not because you like my sparkling personality. Are you just delaying until they find me, all while foolishly hoping that they don’t?”

“My powers are still growing,” Wanda cut him off, sounding angry both at him and at the truth behind her statement. “They grow focused when I have a specific goal. So I only need some practice before I will be fully able to do all that I have told you. So yes, it will take a few days. But rest assured, it _will_ happen.”

Peter could see the truth of her words in her eyes, certain and angry as she stared at him. A beat, and then she rose to her feet.

“Finish eating,” she ordered. “We have several more hours on the road.”

Peter didn’t bother pondering where exactly they were going. Instead he stared down at his half finished burrito, suddenly not feeling hungry at all anymore.

***

Ned was worried. Peter hadn’t come back the day before, which wasn’t really too out of the ordinary, to be perfectly honest. But he had texted him Friday morning upon seeing his bed untouched, asking him if he was alright and if he stayed somewhere else the night before, and the message was _still_ unread. He had even looked at the news reports, and he didn’t see anything about Spiderman having trouble with some villain.

Peter didn’t know that Ned knew that he was Spiderman, but the guy was _terrible_ at keeping a secret. Ned was _dying_ to ask him more questions about how it worked, but he also wanted to see how long he could go trolling Peter with vague comments that hinted he knew but then claim ignorance or some other reason when Peter tried to get clarification on what he said.

He was regretting that now though, because _surely_ Peter had some other phone for superhero stuff only, but Ned didn’t know it and now he didn’t know who to contact about the fact that Peter had been missing for more than twenty-four hours. He didn’t want to call the police, because if it was really a Spiderman problem then he didn’t want to _out_ the guy. He knew Peter lived with someone he called his “Dad” and his “Pops”, but was that anyone in the Avengers? Or did Peter have other dads that didn’t know his secret identity? Ned deeply regretted not pressing for more details now. He knew that Spiderman worked with the Avengers sometimes, but were they close enough that they knew who Peter was? Ned didn’t want to out Peter to _them_ either, not without knowing whether Peter was in danger or if he was laying low for some reason.

As he sat on his bed, staring at Peter’s messy one and wishing he knew what to do, Ned suddenly remembered – Wade. Peter talked about his friend Wade probably more than anyone else, besides the elusive “Dad” and “Pops”. They seemed fairly close – maybe this “Wade” knew about Peter’s alter ego?

It was a risk Ned was willing to make, and he quickly pulled up his phone, typing “spiderman and wade” into the search bar.

A whole slew of results came up, including images, and Ned was fairly certain, based on the frequency of the name, that it was “Wade Wilson” he was looking for. He tapped on the images tab, and his eyes widened when he saw blurry shots of Spiderman and _Deadpool_ in various locations – in fights, on top of roofs, and one even from across what looked like a Mexican restaurant in the middle of the night.

“Damn, Peter,” Ned said out loud, impressed. Nerdy Peter Parker, hanging out with a dangerous mercenary, and even being what sounded – and looked – like best friends with the guy. Even knowing that he was Spiderman, it seemed like an extra risk that wasn’t really necessary, but some of these pictures dated back a couple of years, and Ned wasn’t going to say anything about it. _Clearly_ Peter was safe with him – and more than that, he was comfortable with him.

He swiped curiously, absently, to the next picture, and startled so badly at the image that greeted him that he dropped his phone on the ground. Blinking quickly, he picked it up again, glancing briefly at the _definitely_ NSFW drawing of Spiderman and Deadpool making out against an alley wall, clothes haphazard from roaming hands, before he closed out of the window completely. The artist’s depiction didn’t look much like Peter at all, except that the man underneath was white, but still it felt strange and _wrong_ to be looking at porn where one side was supposed to be his friend underneath the mask.

Shaking himself, Ned gathered up his bag and roughly pulled on his shoes, shoving his phone in his pocket. It was dark now, and he figured Deadpool would be out, if what he’d read online was to be in any way believed. He figured it couldn’t hurt to go searching.

***

It was past midnight when Ned finally had any luck. He was in Hell’s Kitchen, because he had seen through more online searching – including places online not typically accessible to the general person running a Google search – that Deadpool was somewhat not-friends sort-of-allies not-enemies with Daredevil, who ran almost exclusively in Hell’s Kitchen. Ned hadn’t had any luck after taking the subway to Queens, under the idea that Peter said he was from there so that was probably where he had met Wade and so Wade was probably there fairly often. After over an hour of pretending to be drunk so that no one was too concerned when he was shouting for Deadpool, he had found the information about Daredevil online and taken another subway to Hell’s Kitchen.

This time he shouted for Daredevil only twice, and was in the middle of his third time when the man himself dropped in front of Ned in a swirl of red, nearly scaring the piss out of him at the suddenness of it.

“Shit,” Ned gasped, holding a hand to his heart to will it to stop pounding.

“You called,” the masked man said flatly. “What is wrong?”

“Oh, my friend – Peter – he’s…well, he went missing yesterday. Or, I don’t know about missing, but he’s not answering my texts or calls and I’m pretty sure something went wrong…”

“Call the police about it,” the Daredevil interrupted. “It has been over twenty-four hours, they will be able…”

“No, I can’t do that!” Ned protested, interrupting in kind. “Look, Mr. Devil, I wasn’t even really looking for you – I’m looking for Deadpool. Er, Wade. Peter talks about him a lot, and so I figure he knows…” he cut himself off before he could reveal Peter’s secret identity, because he didn’t know if the Devil knew it either. “…erm, I just really need to find Deadpool, and I figure since you’re sort of friends with him that you might know where he is? I looked in Queens already, but New York is big and I dunno, maybe you have his number?”

“Peter,” Daredevil repeated suspiciously. “Is that Peter Parker?”

“Yeah!” Ned confirmed, expression lightening. “He’s my roommate at ESU. Do you know him?”

“He is missing,” Daredevil said more than asked. “How long?”

“Erm, I dunno. I left him at the library yesterday evening, and I haven’t seen him since then. I didn’t want to call the police because…well…”

“No, calling the police would not be a good idea,” Daredevil agreed, pulling a cell phone out of one of his many hidden pockets. He pressed a button, and then said, “Call Wade Wilson.”

For a moment Ned thought that the older man was talking to him, before a digitized voice said, “Calling Wade.”

Ned couldn’t hear when Wade – Deadpool – answered, but after a moment Daredevil said, “Wade, have you seen Peter recently?” A pause, and then his face tightened, and Ned knew that Deadpool was just as clueless as he was as to Peter’s whereabouts. Even though Ned had suspected as much, he still felt his heart sink into his shoes. Where was Peter?

Daredevil’s voice rose like he was interrupting Wade – which, given the past few minutes of conversation, was in character, Ned thought. “I have Peter’s roommate in front of me; he hasn’t seen him since yesterday evening and he’s not answering his phone. I’m sending him to Avengers Tower – if you want to help, meet him there.”

Daredevil hung up the phone without waiting for an answer, and looked at Ned. “When you get to the Tower,” he instructed, because of course Ned had heard the whole conversation and didn’t need to be updated, “Ask for Peter’s dad. Use those words – Peter’s dad.”

Ned’s eyes widened. “Peter lives at Avengers Tower?” he squeaked.

Daredevil looked at him oddly. “You did not know that?” he questioned, going tense and still, and Ned abruptly realized that the man looked like he was preparing for a fight. Every line of his body was exuding protectiveness, and Ned realized then that it was toward _Peter_.

It was that that made him say, “Peter doesn’t know that I know what he does at night.” Daredevil paused, and then relaxed when Ned continued, “I’ve been trolling him. So we’ve never talked about it, so I don’t know a lot or who else knows. All I knew was that he had a friend Wade he talks about all the time, and when I matched the names online I figured out that Wade was Deadpool so that’s why I was looking for him.”

“You are a good friend,” Daredevil hummed. “Do as I said – go to the Tower, ask for Peter’s dad. Tell them everything you know. Wade will be along shortly – he’s coming out from the Bronx. I will do what I can from here.”

Without another word, he disappeared in a whirl of shadows and red fabric. Ned blinked after him, before he turned toward Manhattan. Hopefully the Avengers would know what to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did not intend for Ned's bit to be so big. I also did not intend to have Matt in here, but it seemed like it would be too easy for Ned to find Wade when Wade covers so much more area (*cough* the whole world *cough*) and so Matt seemed the natural solution as he covers primarily Hell's Kitchen, especially at night. He just seems to poke himself into my fics, and I'm like, "well, this might as well happen" and here we are.
> 
> Also, Ned totally secretly ships Peter and Wade. #OTP Finding out that others ship their alter egos is a revelation he's not altogether displeased with. (He could do without the porn, though. That's weird.)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much Missellaineous for your wonderful comments - it has encouraged me to get this up sooner than I planned. :)

Peter didn’t know where exactly they were, but _boy howdy_ was he glad when the car finally came to a stop at a house in the woods in the middle of Nowhere, Canada.

Peter had never been to Canada, but it was _cold_. Everything was covered in snow, more than he had _ever_ seen in New York. He hadn’t known how they were going to get through border patrol as they approached the gate with the guards in their booths, but Wanda had simply looked at the guard, and Peter supposed she was using her powers, because without any words or papers being exchanged, the guard waved them through without delay, not even blinking when she made eye contact with Peter in the backseat, clearly being held against his will. Peter supposed he was grateful; he wouldn’t want some innocent guard to get caught in the crossfire with Wanda and Pietro.

It had been a couple hours past the border where they finally came to a stop, and the clock on the dash told him it was now into the morning hours of the next day, and Peter was _exhausted_. He had been stressing all day about what Wanda had told him was in store for him, and although they stopped twice more to eat because Wanda somehow sensed from his mind when his body was hungry, Peter felt tenser than ever the longer he was in their presence.

He couldn’t even make any plans to counteract theirs; Wanda was constantly _literally_ reading his mind, making sure that he could never get a leg up on them. Somehow Peter didn’t think that politely asking her to stop that would work. Never before had Peter felt so invaded and exposed, and it didn’t help that Peter knew it was going to get a whole lot worse.

He hoped that his family found him soon – if they even knew he was gone. Peter doubted they would really start to worry until Monday evening, or maybe even Tuesday morning, because they were expecting him to spend the week of Thanksgiving in the Tower, but they knew to make allowances for Spiderman activities and although they would probably be worried on Monday, they wouldn’t know for sure that anything had happened until Tuesday when he still hadn’t shown up.

A lot could happen in three days.

Of course, Peter thought hopefully, he usually texted with Wade at least every other day, so perhaps by Saturday night he would think something was wrong – Peter had been planning to chat with Wade on Thursday, but of course Wanda and Pietro had gotten in the way of that. By Saturday, it would have been three days since he’d texted with or seen Wade.

But, Wade also had low self esteem. He might think that Peter was simply taking a break, taking a step back from the mercenary, and would just wallow. Peter really couldn’t count on a heavy reaction from that front, if that proved to be the case.

And other than that…no one. Peter grimaced to himself in frustration that no one else knew his secret, knew to be concerned. Ned would just think he had gone home a few days early for the break – his backpack and phone being gone would support that.

And so, he knew he had to power through the next three days on his own, because he wouldn’t be able to count on anything until then – nothing except the fact that Wanda and Pietro _really_ hated Tony, and they were going to use him to get back at the man.

All of this had led to an upset stomach, and the tenseness with which he held himself made it so that by the time they finally got to their destination, Peter was ready to pass out in bed. Or even a couch, he wasn’t picky. Just not the cramped back seat of the sedan, where he could find no comfortable position, especially with his reinforced bonds.

“Come,” Wanda said, shutting off the car. “This is a good place.”

The wind felt like it was biting his face off when he got out of the car, and the boots that were fine for a New York early winter were almost instantly soaked when he stepped into the snow that came up to his knee. He glared up at the sky, where snow continued to flutter down like it was mocking him for not being prepared for Canadian weather.

 _Well, that’s not **my** fault, now is it? _He grumbled mentally to himself as he trudged behind the two siblings.

Wanda’s hands glowed red, fingers moving around the doorknob of the front door, and a moment later the door clicked and then swung open under her power.

It was dark inside, and about as cold inside as it was outside, as its residents clearly didn’t live there year round. Peter looked on uncertainly as the two went in, though he still followed them in, as he clearly had no other options. Wanda closed the door behind him without looking, at the same time waving a hand to start a fire in the fireplace and lighting a couple of the lamps without reaching for the light switches. Peter vaguely wondered if she simply turned them on, or if she infused power into them. Surely the people who lived here wouldn’t bother paying for power when they were gone?

Peter looked over at a blur of movement that he didn’t quite catch, and saw Pietro now facing his sister, a few feet from where he’d been last Peter saw.

“There is a single bedroom, king sized bed,” he reported, and Peter wondered how the older man knew that. “There is enough room to drag the couch in there so we can all sleep in the same room.”

Wanda hummed appreciatively, and with a wave of her hand, the couch floated along in front of her, while Pietro led the way down the hallway to a room where there was indeed a king sized bed in the center.

Peter wasn’t surprised to be relegated to the couch, seeing as how he was their prisoner, but he _was_ able to convince Wanda that binding his feet together with the damned cuffs would be just as effective as binding his hands, because he really wanted to sleep and he could do that better without the restriction on his arms, but he would still be hobbled and unable to escape.

Wanda had relented without much argument, likely because she didn’t really care. Peter was grateful anyway, and settled in with the flannel blanket that Pietro handed off to him from the closet. It smelled musty with disuse, but it was decent enough. Wanda and Pietro shared the bed, and they were quickly asleep, certain in the knowledge that it would be impossible for Peter to escape.

And Peter wanted to. He even considered it, briefly. He could walk on his hands, could take the car keys he had seen Wanda set down on the bedside table, could even knock out each of them with a hard blow to the head while they slept so he could have as much time as possible.

And he might have, if he had known for sure the extent of their powers. He had no _idea_ what Pietro was capable of, and he didn’t want to risk that it was something where he would be caught before he could even open the front door. And he wasn’t afraid so much of getting caught as he was how they might _react_. He didn’t want to make things worse than they already were, where they took revenge on him in addition to Tony. Or even on the rest of his family. Realistically, he just couldn’t risk it. He’d been with them for hours, but they were both still unknowns, grey figures with huge question marks going through the middle.

And so he lied there, willing himself to feel the fatigue he’d felt in the car so that he could drop off to sleep.

But where he was exhausted, he was also _freezing_. Since the spider bite that had changed his DNA, he had a much harder time retaining heat, and winter was definitely _not_ his friend – let alone winter in _Canada_. And while Wanda had lit the fire in the front room, they were now in the back of the house, and it would be awhile before the heat reached them. Peter was pretty certain he wouldn’t freeze to death, but he would certainly be awake until he could warm up, and he didn’t know how long that would take.

Teeth chattering, Peter looked over somewhat enviously at the brother and sister in the bed, who were sharing body heat probably without realizing that that’s the only reason they weren’t uncomfortable in the cold of the cabin.

For a brief, insane moment, Peter considered climbing into the bed with them. There was certainly enough room for it, and he would warm up quickly between the two of them.

But he didn’t know how they might react to their captor climbing into bed with them, or even waking one of them up to make the request. For all he knew, he would wind up being attacked without question, and then where would he be? Certainly not sleeping as peacefully as they were now. Also, although he didn’t think he would fall victim to Stockholm Syndrome, he knew it was possible in anyone and he didn’t want to do _anything_ to encourage that in his brain.

Peter’s mind went to the memory of the fire in the front room, and he made the snap decision to just go and sleep in front of it. It would be even faster than warming with body heat, and certainly more peaceful, with his captors in another room.

He sat up, fighting against his uncontrollable shivering, and quickly and silently folded the blanket. It was difficult to shove it between his thighs with his ankles locked together so tightly, but he managed it, though the folding came loose as he did. But it did the job, and with a swift movement, Peter dropped into a handstand on the wooden floor. He moved silently out the door of the room, down the hall, and sighed with relief at the heat he could feel emanating through the front room from the fireplace.

He dropped with as much grace as he could manage in front of the fireplace, and pulled the blanket out from between his thighs to cover him, trying to contain as much warmth as possible as he laid himself lengthwise in front of the fire so he could get warm as quickly as possible.

Although the ground was hard now and not all too comfortable – especially now that he was without a pillow – the warmth was enough to remind his body how tired he was, and it only took a few minutes for him to drop off to sleep.

***

Ned wished that he could be excited. He was meeting the Avengers, after all! And he’d found out that the one Peter called “Dad” was Bucky Barnes, and “Pops” was Steve Rogers, and in any other situation Ned would absolutely be fanboying and firing questions at them – even more when the rest of the Avengers joined them in various states of sleepiness.

However, this was decidedly _not_ a normal situation. Peter, the one he would call his best friend, despite the short amount of time they had known each other, was _missing_. And worse still, the Avengers had _no idea_ who would’ve taken him, because it had likely been on campus but that would mean someone was after _Peter_ and not _Spiderman_.

Mr. Stark ( _omigod that’s **Tony** **Stark**!_) was saying something about how his “FML Protocol” ( _?_ ) was showing that Peter’s phone was still at the university, which he had pretty much expected anyway if he’d been kidnapped, but this only told them that they were smarter kidnappers because they had ditched the phone where he was last seen and so there wasn’t even a hint of the _direction_ he might have been taken to so that was a dead end.

“Surely the library has a security camera,” someone said, and Ned looked over to see the Black Widow, looking as deadly as ever even in purple pajama pants with fluffy clouds printed all over them. “We can see if that’s where Peter was taken from or if he left on his own.”

Then her startling green eyes went to Ned, and he gulped a little at having the gaze so focused on him, but didn’t say anything about it because now was _not_ the time to waste said time when they could be focused on finding Peter. Ned was _not_ screwing this up for his friend.

Her gaze seemed almost approving then, and if Ned didn’t know any better he would think she was a telepathic who could read minds and had just read his.

“Did Peter make any plans with you that he missed in the past couple of days?” she asked him.

“I mean, not really _for sure_ plans,” Ned said, shifting and fiddling nervously with his backpack strap. “It’s never anything official, but we were putting together the Lego Death Star and we usually do that on Thursdays because both of us don’t have as many classes and it’s closer to the end of the week so there’s a little bit less homework. I mean, not a lot, because _college_ , but it’s before Friday when they give us the big load of homework to do over the weekend because _apparently_ if we don’t fill all the hours in a weekend with homework we’ll be absolutely bored, but – anyway. That’s not the point. But when he didn’t come back I just figured he had gone out Spidermanning, but since he doesn’t exactly _know_ that I know about that, I didn’t try texting him and then I went to bed but when I got up in the morning he still hadn’t made it back so that’s when I started to get worried, but you know – maybe he had spent the night with his dads! But then he wasn’t responding to texts all day and so I went looking for Wade because Peter talks about him a lot and he’s the only one I knew by name and then I found out it was Deadpool he was talking about so I went looking for him, but…”

“Yeah, you’ve told us this part, kid,” Hawkeye said from his perch on the bookshelf in the corner. He was twirling a singular arrow absentmindedly, the rest of his quiver and his bow out of sight.

“Is it likely that Peter _did_ go out as Spiderman, and he’s lying somewhere hurt?” the Falcon pointed out in a reasonable tone. “We may just need to search within New York.”

“Already got Mattie on that, birdie!” A deep voice said directly behind Ned, and he jumped approximately three feet in the air, not having known someone had come up behind him. Heart racing, he turned and looked with wide eyes at a man a few inches taller than him and about as wide, but his size came from muscles. There was lots of red and black in his vision, but it wasn’t until he locked his gaze on the panda mask with white eyes that it clicked – _Deadpool!_

Ned found himself relaxing with relief that Spiderman’s closest ally and probably closest friend was there, because although Ned had never met Wade before, he had heard enough from Peter, and combined with his internet searches he felt like he knew the guy well enough already that he was more comfortable with him than he was the rest of the Avengers.

Deadpool glanced at him curiously, but his attention was elsewhere and it showed as he continued, “Our little Devil is looking through New York so we don’t have to,” he reported. “And I am here to offer my unaliving services toward anyone involved in Petey-pie’s disappearance. So what have you got?”

***

Peter woke to the sound of an angry shout saying something in another language, but he didn’t have any time to process that before something slammed into his locked ankles, knocking him onto his back, and he stared in sleepy but alarmed befuddlement up at the ceiling.

“He is in here!” a man’s voice shouted, and Peter sat up, trying to unwrap himself from the blanket burrito he’d unintentionally been rolled into. He squinted upward, recognizing Pietro in the bright light that reflected off the snow outside. The older man looked jumpy and angry and about a million other emotions that Peter couldn’t identify in his brain that was still foggy with the last vestiges of sleep.

“ _What_ are you doing?” Wanda said angrily, and Peter saw scarlet wisps in his field of vision right before his blanket was yanked away with said powers. Peter startled at the suddenness of it before shivering in the air that was warm enough not to freeze but definitely still colder outside the blanket, and somewhat of a shock to someone who had just woken up.

“I _was_ sleeping,” he sniped, rubbing his eyes.

“Why did you leave the room?” Pietro demanded, taking a step forward, and Peter instinctively leaned back, away from the perceived threat in the movement.

“It was cold,” he told them with a tired sigh.

Before he could explain further, Wanda snapped, “We gave you a blanket.”

“And a blanket is useless if I’m already cold and it’s still cold in the room,” Peter explained as patiently as he could, because at least she wasn’t rummaging around in his mind for the answer, and he just honestly didn’t have the energy at the moment to question why that was.

“It’s been that way since I became…this,” he waved a hand expansively over his body. “Spiders can’t thermo regulate; it’s harder for me to, either. So I came to sleep in front of the fire.”

“Wake one of us up next time,” Wanda ordered, roughly tossing the blanket back at him. Peter made a face, but that seemed to be the end of that, as neither of them talked about it further as Peter wrapped the blanket around his shoulders.

“So, what’s on the agenda for today?” Peter asked with a yawn and a quick stretch so as not to disrupt his blanket. “ _Please_ don’t tell me more driving.”

“Today, we practice,” Wanda said simply, though her voice was dark with promise of things to come.

“ _After_ breakfast,” Pietro cut in like a reminder, and Wanda sighed, her dangerous aura abruptly fading.

“Yes, Pietro, after breakfast,” she agreed. She gave Peter a look that if he didn’t know any better he would think was almost _friendly_. Like they were both laughing at her brother for his insistence on breakfast before any work could be done. Seeing as Peter was quite hungry, and he definitely wanted to delay Wanda’s _practicing_ , he wasn’t sure she wasn’t just mocking him with the fake camaraderie.

Ah, well. A question for another time.

“I will be back in under an hour,” Pietro promised, and Peter didn’t know how he hadn’t noticed Pietro putting on his shoes, but he was pretty sure he had been barefoot when he first entered the front room. In any case, Pietro walked out the front door, and it was only after he had left that he realized Pietro hadn’t picked up the car keys. He supposed vaguely that Pietro’s powers must include something that allowed him to drive the car without the keys.

He looked back at Wanda, who was staring at him with an expression on her face that he couldn’t quite decipher. Her eyes weren’t glowing and neither were her hands, but still Peter couldn’t help the instinctive desire to scoot back a couple of inches, as though that would do anything to stop her, should she decide to use her powers on him again.

“I do not intend to hurt you, Peter Parker,” she told him when she saw the movement.

Peter scoffed. “Don’t you, though?” he said rhetorically.

She answered him anyway, though whether she understood it was rhetorical or not was anyone’s guess. “I don’t,” she insisted. “You are merely a stepping stone to getting to Tony Stark. I am not trying to cause you additional pain.”

“Mental trauma can be just as bad, or even worse, than physical trauma,” Peter said knowledgeably. “Your need to hurt Tony will only cause more hurt to others. There’s never just _one_ victim. Look into my memories – am I lying?”

Wanda didn’t take the invitation, but insisted, “Stark killed our parents. He killed most of our town. Don’t try to teach _me_ about collateral damage.”

“So why are you looking to increase it?” Peter wondered, filing away the information she had given him for a later time. “And why like _this_?”

“Because this is the only way to get Stark where it truly hurts,” she sneered. “Killing him would be too easy.”

“You really don’t have to do this,” Peter tried convincing her, but he already knew it was useless, that she could not be swayed. “Tony might go to jail, but this plan of yours is going to hurt _me_ the most, and I know you don’t want that.”

“You will be fine,” she said dismissively. “And if you are not, I will find you after he’s in jail and remove the painful memories. I might even befriend you then, because you won’t remember any of _this_. You might even _ask_ me to take away the bad memories.”

Peter stared at her, uncertain how to proceed in the face of her own certainty in their plan. She smiled at him at the look – he couldn’t find any regret in her expression. He wanted to believe that Wanda and Pietro weren’t going to go through with it, but that was looking less and less likely.

“Do not worry yourself, Peter Parker,” she told him, going over to the kitchen area to investigate the contents of the cabinets. “It will take a few days of practice before it will take hold with any reliability. And then, you won’t even know to care about it.”

Peter didn’t know if she meant her statement to be reassuring, but if she did, she failed. If anything, he was even more stressed out at the possibilities of what the future might hold.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I found out on Friday that one of my friends is having her baby shower this coming weekend, except that for some reason I thought she'd already had her kid but didn't have a shower because of COVID, and now with less than a week I've gotta crochet her a baby blanket so that's the reason for my absentia. The only reason this is being posted today is because I had already written the chapter before I found out about her baby and I just needed to do some last minute editing. 
> 
> Last minute then turned into about another thousand words being added but oh well. Such is the writer life.
> 
> We will see about when I get the next chapter up lol. Hope you like this one!

Peter hadn’t been sure what “practice” would consist of, but when he learned that it was primarily Wanda invading his mind and poking at spots that felt tender in a way that wasn’t exactly physical, he was just glad to learn that while uncomfortable, it wasn’t really _painful_.

It did make him tired, though, despite the fact that he wasn’t really the one doing the work. He was vindictively pleased when he saw Wanda needing to take many breaks when her nose began to bleed, her magic protesting the amount of effort she was putting into growing so quickly.

While she was practicing, he was unfortunately kept in bonds on his ankles _and_ his wrists, presumably because Wanda needed to focus more on his mind and couldn’t be distracted making sure he wasn’t trying to escape at the same time. On one hand, it made Peter really wonder what Pietro’s powers were, if he couldn’t be relied on to keep Peter contained while Wanda was otherwise occupied. But on the other hand, Peter was just uncomfortable, and frustrated that he really had no options to even _try_ for escape. And he wanted to. He would, if he saw a chance to do so. But for now, he had to deal with the prodding in his mind even while his Spidey sense buzzed in protest to the repeated intrusion as well as the presence of the ones who wanted revenge through him.

The first day, he didn’t think Wanda really accomplished much – an opinion that seemed to be shared by her, as she looked upset with herself when Pietro insisted that she stop for the day so that she didn’t exhaust herself to the point of collapse. But she obeyed her brother, and used a bit of power only to release the cuffs that secured his wrists to his waist. Peter sighed with relief as the pressure in his shoulders eased – staying in the one position for too long, even on the couch that had been brought back into the front room, was not comfortable in the least.

They had a bit of a conundrum when they all went to bed that night, because Peter wanted to stay in front of the fire again to keep warm but they wanted to sleep in the bed, which wouldn’t fit with the couch in the living room. They told him they didn’t trust him, while he just stared at them and said flatly that he’d slept in the living room the night before and hadn’t tried anything. He didn’t know why they couldn’t just let him sleep on the floor again, and move the bed into the front room and the couch to the back room, but that didn’t even seem to be an option.

Eventually they reached a compromise: The couch was moved so it was sitting vertically in the corner of the room to take up the least amount of space possible, and the mattress was moved into the front room to sit on the floor in front of the fireplace. Peter took the side of the bed closest to the fireplace, while Pietro slept in the middle with Wanda on the far side. Peter didn’t know why they were so insistent that he sleep on a soft surface, but maybe it had something to do with their evil plan. He didn’t know. He didn’t want to hope that they were just concerned about his comfort, because enough of everything else they did confirmed that they were merely selfishly going after their own revenge. He didn’t want to be disappointed if he tried seeing good in them.

Despite the soft surface he was on though, he actually slept worse than he had the night before. Every little sound and gust of wind sent him startling back into alertness, and his Spidey sense was a low vibration in a corner of his mind – minor, but still there enough that he could never truly relax. He was pretty sure it was in large part due to the fact that his captors were mere inches away from him, and he was now more knowledgeable about not only what their powers afforded them, but also what they were capable of doing to _him_.

There was also the increased stress about what life might be like a week, two weeks from now, once Wanda had accomplished what she wanted. He didn’t want Tony to go through the plans the twins had in store for him, but he couldn’t really see a way of stopping it. He didn’t know if the other Avengers would know that he had been mind-whammied and tricked whenever he got back to New York, or if they would even know to suspect it when he would doubtlessly act differently. And because of that, he didn’t know how they would react when they learned the falsehood of how Tony had supposedly – Peter swallowed over his disgust at the very _thought_ – assaulted him that way. Would they even pause to consider that maybe Peter’s memories were faulty? That they were planted? Peter didn’t know. He didn’t want to find out either, but he didn’t know how to stop it or how to escape it.

He must have gotten maybe only a couple of hours sleep total over the entirety of the night, despite the warmth of the fire. By the time the sun began to rise and cover the room in the blue-grey light of dawn, Peter knew that it was useless to hope he would get any sleep. It was once the sun had lit the entirety of the room in soft yellow rays that Pietro began to stir as he woke up first, and Peter had yet to really fall asleep.

Peter looked over to see Pietro blinking at him, eyes slowly gaining more awareness as he woke up further.

“How long have you been awake?” Pietro questioned, accent thicker in his sleepiness.

“That depends on whether you count vague dissociation and losing track of time as being asleep,” Peter replied in a quiet voice so that they didn’t wake Wanda. “If you don’t, then all night. If you do…maybe six hours?” He provided his best guess.

Pietro sat up, rubbing one eye with the heel of his hand. “Why did you not sleep? It was warm enough.”

Peter gave him a flat look. “I am in the same bed as the people holding me captive in the winter in the middle of Canada, who would like to destroy my life and the people I care about,” he said in a deadpan voice. “You tell me how I am supposed to relax.”

For a moment, Pietro looked almost sheepish, before his expression smoothed into something more flat and a bit stern.

“I’m sure you will be fine,” he dismissed. “We have no intention of harming you.”

“Unless I try to escape,” Peter finished, rolling his eyes. His lack of sleep was making him more argumentative, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. Either they would hurt him or they wouldn’t.

“Depends,” Pietro said with a shrug. “We do not seek to harm you, but in restraining you should you attempt escape, we would do it in the easiest and fastest way possible, not necessarily the least harmful. It would be your own fault then, should you sustain injury.”

Wanda reached out then before Peter could answer, smacking her brother’s leg and then his arm, eyes still closed against the light.

“Go get breakfast,” she told him groggily. “I’m still sleeping.”

Pietro rolled his eyes and said something to her in what Peter had learned was indeed Sokovian, to which she responded in kind, sounding grumpy like any other young person upset at being awakened.

Pietro rose to his feet, and as he was putting on his shoes he paused and looked at Peter directly. His expression was more serious and threatening than Peter had seen from the guy thus far.

“I do not seek to harm you, but if you harm my sister while she sleeps I will make an exception,” he told him seriously, eyes seeming to glow more than normal as they bored into him. “So just sit there quietly until told otherwise.”

Peter nodded impatiently – he had no intention of harming Wanda, even to escape. And not just because he would have no way of escaping, especially with the cuffs still around his ankles – cuffs that would need help to be rid of that was nowhere nearby.

Wanda called something short in Sokovian again to Pietro, and Pietro just rolled his eyes at her before nodding firmly and resolutely in Peter’s direction and leaving out the front door.

The open door let in a gust of freezing wind, and although Pietro closed it quickly behind him as he left, Peter was still cold. The fire had died to nothing more than embers about an hour before, and the small cabin had quickly cooled below what was comfortable to him in the Canadian winter weather conditions.

He looked over at Wanda, on the other side of the mattress, who was snuggled into her own blanket and looking perfectly comfortable about it. Her face was relaxed in sleep, and Peter didn’t want to bother her, but he _was_ cold, and combined with his overtiredness, it was making him feel sick.

“Wanda,” he whispered. He didn’t want to raise his voice any more than that, because if she was asleep – or wanted to ignore him but wouldn’t if he was louder – then he really didn’t want to bother her. She may be around his same age, but she _was_ his kidnapper and captor, and he knew that he didn’t want to incite her ire unnecessarily – or at least unnecessary from _her_ point of view.

However, at Peter’s whisper, she just grunted in acknowledgement, not opening her eyes.

Peter took that as permission to continue, “I’m just gonna get my jacket from the corner. I’ll be right back.”

She grunted again, which he took for assent, and he carefully tipped himself into a handstand, feeling a bit of déjà vu as he went to the jacket in the corner. He hand-walked back to the bed with it shoved between his knees, and after sitting back on the mattress, he shoved his arms into the sleeves, zipping it up to his neck. He pulled on his shoes too, because that was another layer of warmth besides just his socks. When he rolled back onto the bed to pull the blanket over himself, he saw Wanda watching him suspiciously and somewhat warily.

Peter sighed in exasperation and rolled his eyes. “I’m fucking _cold_ , man,” he complained, huddling into his blanket like it was a burrow, while pretending like her gaze didn’t unsettle him. “I’m just putting on more layers to warm up – calm _down_.”

The suspicion faded, but the wariness didn’t. She blinked at him a couple of times, and he was about to roll his eyes again and turn his back on her when she unexpectedly raised her own blanket toward him, one half still covering her, a clear invitation to snuggle.

Taken aback, Peter stared at her, and Wanda huffed and rolled her eyes. “My body heat will help – we cannot have you getting sick or dying because we can’t take care of a spider. I am not going to hurt you – I’m just offering a solution. We are out of wood, so fire is not an option. Take it or leave it.”

Wanda’s expression was challenging, and Peter had never been one to back down from a dare, so he raised his chin a little and scooted toward her.

“Wait,” Wanda said before he got too close. Peter stopped and raised an eyebrow at her – _what now?_

But she just waved her wispy strands of red toward him, and cuffs appeared on Peter’s wrists again, locked to his waist as was becoming the norm. He gave her an unimpressed look, but she ignored it and moved closer to him now, draping the blanket around them both. Peter shivered at the sudden warmth, but tucked his chin into his jacket to try to warm up faster.

“Now be still, I want to sleep longer,” Wanda murmured, already closing her eyes. Peter obeyed, wondering why his Spidey sense wasn’t blaring klaxon signals of warning at her close proximity. Hopefully it wasn’t beginning to think she was _friendly_. That could be bad.

Peter didn’t get close enough to sleep that he was even dozing, but his muscles did begin to relax as he warmed up once more and there was no immediate threat nearby. Well, yes, there was Wanda, but she was sleeping. For the moment, he was fine.

It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes since Pietro had left when Peter’s Spidey sense buzzed a sharp warning at him just before the door blew open and a silvery blur rushed inside.

Peter didn’t know what it was, but he trusted his Spidey sense, and as soon as it gave him a warning, he was moving so that he was between Wanda and the door, blocking her as much as he could manage with his bonds.

But it was as he covered Wanda that the blur stopped, and Peter saw that it was Pietro.

“We need to go!” Pietro said sharply, noting their positions but not saying anything – there was apparently no time.

Pietro became a blur again, disappearing into the back room, but Wanda was already moving quickly, yanking on the boots she kept next to the bed, jacket quickly following.

“What is happening?” she demanded, shoving Peter off the mattress before using her powers to take it back to the bedroom, then lowering the couch into its place.

Pietro appeared back in the front room with each of their bags in his hands, eyes wild and alarmed as he passed them to her. She pulled on the one she and Pietro shared, handing Peter his, despite the fact that he couldn’t put it on with his hands cuffed together at the waist.

“We have incoming, maybe five minutes,” Pietro rapped out. “Faster than the car – I will run. Come.”

“I hate everything about this,” Wanda complained, even as she accepted Pietro throwing her somewhat gracefully over his shoulder. Peter was handled with much less care, though not in a manner to cause intentional pain. Peter supposed he should be grateful for that, but he was a little busy getting his breath back after having the wind knocked out of him. It was difficult to do, with his hands still bound together at his waist, and he was hanging over Pietro’s shoulder with his hands shoved into his stomach, leaving little room for him to suck in the gasps of air that he wanted without feeling the bruising bite of the cuffs in his softer skin.

But then Pietro was running outside, and Peter was suddenly _freezing_ again, and he had to tuck his face into Pietro’s back to avoid the wind stinging at his face at not only the cold but also at the impossible _speed_ with which he was running. Wanda was doing the same thing from her position over his other shoulder.

 _Well, I guess that answers the question of what exactly his powers are,_ he thought somewhat hysterically. Running at what must be the damn speed of light wouldn’t have been his first guess. He must have strength added on there too, because while Peter was lighter than the average young man, he was still over a hundred pounds, and Pietro was carrying both him and Wanda – whom he would guess was probably about the same weight as him, despite being smaller – at the same time.

He thought of his backpack, which he’d unfortunately needed to leave behind, unable to carry it with his bonds while over Pietro’s shoulder. He briefly mourned for it; he had his laptop with all his schoolwork and a couple of pretty expensive textbooks in there, plus his notebook with his Spidey plans – not that it was immediately recognizable as such, as it was mostly equations and partial doodles to new suit ideas.

He just hoped that one day he could go back for it – and that nobody found it in the meantime.

***

“I found his backpack!” Wade exclaimed, holding up Petey’s backpack like a trophy. ~~His~~ Petey was such a nerd; he had insisted on getting a plain black backpack, and then proceeded to get a bunch of pins and buttons and iron-ons to attach to it. A couple of them were science-y puns, one had Einstein’s face on it, and there was an iron-on peeling off of the pride flag. Wade would have to see about taking a needle and thread to that to fix it.

“Great, so we can confirm he was definitely here,” Tony said, tilting his head as he looked around the small cabin, presumably so JARVIS could scan it to see if there were any clues left behind.

“Never doubt Luis’ information!” Wade scolded lightly. “He’s my most trusted source!”

“Let’s look around nearby – it looks like they left in a hurry,” Tony directed, walking out the front door, armor clanking heavily with each step. “There’s at least two unfriendlies to be aware of.” He tilted his head up to where the quinjet was hovering in the sky. “Nat, you got that?”

“Copy,” she affirmed, and then Steve spoke up, directing them next from the other jet. “Widow, you and Hawkeye look North, among the trees. ’Pool, you’ll join me and Bucky looking South. Falcon, East. Iron Man, West.”

“Roger,” each of them said in turn to their assignments, parting quickly in search of clues.

“They’re almost definitely mutants,” Wade said as he joined Bucky and Steve back on their jet. “You could smell the electricity really strong – that’s always there when mutants use powers that affect their surroundings. Not like me – I just don’t die.” He giggled a little. “Also, the snow patterns were weird.”

“Snow patterns,” Steve repeated incredulously, handing off the controls to Bucky to fly the jet, because the man always felt better when he had something specific to focus on rather than just waiting for others to do their part.

“Yeah, I dunno,” Wade said with a shrug. “Maybe lots of wind blew them around, but it looks an awful lot like a path.”

“Let’s follow it,” Bucky grunted, eyes dark. He had been almost nonverbal since they’d found out Peter was missing, stressed as he was about the possibilities of what he might be going through, and completely in the dark about who it was who had taken him.

“It _does_ go South,” Wade agreed, and then pointed out the front window. “Onward, noble steed!”

Bucky’s expression didn’t crack one iota as he moved the controls to follow the vague path to the South. Nothing could make him smile even a little while his son was missing.

***

Peter didn’t know how long Pietro ran for. It felt like an eternity, spent in silence as they wouldn’t be able to understand each other over the sound of the wind going by. He also began to feel nauseated after a while, the fast movement combined with his hands being pressed into his stomach combined with his hunger that grew more insistent the longer they went doing nothing for him.

It did give him time to think though, as Pietro ran, and his brain quickly caught up to him, making him think of the implications of the events of the morning. The two of them were afraid of incoming people, which meant that there must be someone specific they were running from. The only ones he could think of that would both be after them and care about Peter being with them were his family. He felt his heart lift at the realization – his family was looking for him! He didn’t know how they figured out he was missing so soon, but he was glad that things didn’t seem quite so bleak now – especially with them being so close on his tail that they needed to leave so immediately. Maybe he wouldn’t be found today or even the next day, but people were looking, and he was immediately more hopeful for it.

Peter noticed that when Pietro stopped running and let them back on their own feet, it was in a place with no snow. He wondered if he was worried about tracks or if that was just a coincidence, but Peter was too busy dry heaving into a nearby bush to really ponder on it too much. Everything was spinning so fast around him that he couldn’t even be bothered to be glad over the fact that he was once again on American soil.

“You are fine – get up,” Wanda said without sympathy, grabbing his bicep and yanking him off of his knees and to his feet. Peter wavered, struggling to keep his balance with his ankles still locked tightly together, giving no room for stumbling.

“You know, it would be a lot easier to do that if you didn’t insist on keeping me locked up so tightly,” Peter said with deep irritation, glaring at her and swallowing against the urge to heave again. “A little help?”

“Stop being difficult and just do as you are told,” Wanda said harshly, though she did deign to get rid of the ankle cuffs with a wave of her hand.

It did nothing to slake Peter’s ire, and he was so fed up he jerked himself from her grasp with a rough yank.

“No, I’ve _been_ doing everything you told me!” Peter said with an angry glare. “But you two have been tossing me around like some kind of – of _experiment_ that you want to see how far you can push. I’ve been _through_ that song and dance, and to be frank you’re not even _good_ at it! You two are nothing but bullies, as bad as any other kind of AIM faction or Hydra or other shit…”

Peter was cut off suddenly by a blinding pain shooting through his face like he’d been struck in the cheek with electricity itself, and he was sent crashing to the ground with the force of it. Fighting to get his breath back after the blow, wishing he could press a hand to the injured area, he looked up incredulously at Wanda, whose hands and eyes were swirling and glowing with dangerous scarlet. An almost-defined bolt of the light was detracting back toward her, and he realized that she had somehow made her very _magic_ solid to strike him with.

“We are _not_ like Hydra,” she snarled furiously at him. “And you are not an _experiment_ – we have a _plan_ for you that if you weren’t such a spoiled _brat_ …”

Peter didn’t care to hear more. He twisted his body so that his wrists were pointed up, and fast as anything, webs were shooting one after another out from each of his wrists, attaching with a _snap_ over her mouth, startling her enough that she took a step back.

“Shut _up_!” he snarled, jumping back to his feet, just in time for her to simply _wave_ her hand, and the webs were disappearing from her mouth. Peter was bracing himself for a fight, or even just simply another strike, when Pietro was suddenly between them, taking hold of one of Wanda’s wrists before she could raise a hand at Peter again.

“ _Stop_ it!” he said, his voice more stern than Peter had yet to hear from him, and almost harsh in its firmness. “ _Control_ it, Wanda – conserve your energy for more important things.” Wanda snarled something at her brother in Sokovian, and Pietro barked something back at her that made her scowl but nonetheless subside, red fading from her hands but not her eyes quite yet as she glared daggers at Peter, who only glared right back.

It was apparently enough to satisfy Pietro though, because he released her wrist and turned to Peter. His expression was vaguely apologetic, though still irritated.

“We need to get a car,” he told him, and Peter was a little surprised that he wasn’t addressing Peter’s arguing and defiance. “I cannot run while carrying you two for awhile now, but we _are_ getting out. We are in a place called ‘Colorado’ now. I am led to believe it is warmer the further South we go, so you will be more comfortable when we get to the ‘newer’ Mexico.”

“It’s just _called_ New Mexico,” Peter said automatically. “No ‘the’.”

Pietro shook his head. “Americans,” he muttered under his breath. Then he directed his comments back to Peter. “We do not set out to cause you misery. Your cooperation will see you back home sooner, but if you do not do as you’re told the consequences are your own fault.”

“That’s what we like to call gaslighting and blame-shifting,” Peter said, remembering something his therapist had said once. “No matter what I do, I’m not responsible for _your_ actions – _you_ are.”

Pietro paused at that, tilting his head and blinking at him. If Peter didn’t know any better, he would say that the expression that passed over his face could be described as uneasy. But seeing as he _did_ know better, he dismissed it as nothing more than irritation at being argued with more.

“Do as you are told,” Pietro finally settled on saying. “Now, we must find a car.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holla for these kids who really need some damn therapy.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yesterday, I took stock of what I had finished with the baby blanket so far, and decided that it was too much stress on me and would be almost impossible to finish it before Saturday without doing it in every minute of my spare time, so I ordered a blanket off of Amazon and called it good lol. 
> 
> Now I'm giving my arms a break, and so I had some time to pound out this chapter. It...got a little out of hand. I think that each chapter is going to require a certain number of words, and then I get to writing and it almost doubles. Thus, this chapter was split into two parts. On the bright side, it's not really a cliffhanger here! But the next chapter...sort of is.
> 
> Anyway. I'll talk about that chapter next chapter. For now, enjoy this bit!

They found a car fairly quickly, and Peter pressed his lips tightly together as he watched the theft take place. These were things that he _stopped_ as Spiderman, but now he could do nothing but go along with it. Fighting would only mean a delay – and a minor one at that. Wanda could easily knock him out before he saw it, and that didn’t sound in the least appealing, so he followed where he could, glaring daggers at them but otherwise not fighting back.

They were soon on the road again, heading south as Pietro had said, and although Peter hated everything else about the situation he was in, he was glad when the heater in the car worked wonderfully and he began to thaw for the first time since the fire had died out that morning. (It seemed so long ago now – so much had happened since then, despite the fact that it was not yet ten in the morning.) Despite himself, he found himself drifting off in the back seat, occasionally jerking awake when one of the twins spoke or a semi passed them loudly on the interstate. But otherwise he got more sleep then than he had the entire night before, exhausted as he was after the shock of being freezing for so long and then the fight between him and Wanda.

They stopped a couple of times on the way for food, which surprisingly Wanda actually released his bonds from his waist so that he could eat while she drove. (Pietro had halfheartedly grumbled about Wanda stealing another day of driving when it was _his_ turn, but even Peter could see how the running while carrying them over several states had tired the other boy out, and he napped in the passenger seat almost as much as Peter did in the back seat.) Peter still had to deal with his wrists being cuffed together, but that was easier to deal with because he could still lift his hands to his face to eat.

The sun had just disappeared over the mountains, leaving everything dimly lit in swathes of purple and blue, when Wanda seemed to decide that they had gone far enough. They found a large house on top of a hill, which Wanda seemed to instinctively (or through her powers – he still didn’t really know how they worked) know was empty, with no other house around for miles – or at least not that Peter had seen or was now able to see. She used her powers to open the garage door before parking inside, the garage door slowly falling closed behind them.

“We should be alright here for some time,” she said as she unbuckled her seatbelt. Peter might have thought she was only talking to Pietro, except for the fact that she was speaking in English, so it had to have been for both of their benefit.

With a tired sigh to himself, he moved to the door, and once Pietro had opened it for him he climbed out. His hands were still unlocked from his waist, but he just couldn’t bring himself to care enough to open the door on his own, and by now Pietro was used to it, anyway, and it had become habit.

“We will begin practice again tomorrow,” Wanda said, seemingly just as tired as Peter. Peter thought she looked very young, like this – it made it more real that she was around his own age, rather than some criminal mastermind intent on destroying Iron Man.

He shook the thought quickly from his mind as Wanda continued, “There is probably some food inside, if you are still hungry.”

After a beat, Peter realized that she was talking to him and just shook his head. He wanted to just go to bed and forget that the past few days had happened at all.

Well, not exactly, he amended as they made their way into the house. Wanda was going to make his memories go away some time in the next few days, and he _certainly_ didn’t want that. But he had yet to figure out a way to stop it.

***

Peter supposed that the people who owned the house they had broken into were _rich_. Not Tony Stark rich, but certainly of the sort not to worry when they wanted to buy a yacht for the weekend, or something. They had a pool in the backyard that was almost as big as a community swimming pool, with a cave and water slide and everything. The backyard itself was large and wide, with a family basketball court in the back and a playground on the far side and just a plain grassy area on the other.

If that wasn’t enough to prove their wealth, Peter was still unsure just how many bedrooms were in the place. But every one that they had passed was fully kitted and decorated in a tasteful way. Or, tasteful to someone with expensive tastes, anyway.

The room that they were now in had a normal king-sized bed, but there was enough space for another bed in the spacious room, so Wanda used her powers to bring one in, shoved into the corner for him. Peter wasn’t sure why he was surprised that she had bothered to worry about his comfort in the kidnapping, but nonetheless he hadn’t said anything about it, not wanting to jinx the goodwill in any way.

Wanda hadn’t said anything about it either, only making some comment about how the bed frame would mean that she could just shackle him to that, while at the same time she moved the cuffs on his wrists away to bind his ankles to the bed instead. Peter wondered if she realized that the wood of the bed frame was no match to his Spidey strength. He supposed it didn’t really matter, because even if by some miracle he was able to escape the house and drive away without them noticing, Pietro had gone from Canada to Colorado in no more than an hour. He would surely catch up to Peter, and without the Avengers as backup, Peter knew that he wouldn’t be able to fight off both Pietro and Wanda should they decide to get violent. Or, more violent than they already had, anyway.

Wanda paused after securing Peter’s ankles to the bed posts, and Peter sighed mentally, wondering what it was she was going to say against him now, what insulting words or threats she might try to throw his way after she had no doubt caught all that he had been thinking in the past several minutes since their arrival.

But when Wanda looked at him, her expression wasn’t angry or even irritated. It wasn’t even threatening, it was almost – regretful, he supposed. It didn’t fit with what he’d learned of her so far in their days together though, so he shoved the thought aside.

“I am sorry for lashing out at you as I did,” she told him, and when he stared at her blankly, she tapped her own cheek – the same place she had struck him with her solidified magic. If he hadn’t had his advanced healing powers, he was sure his eye would still be swollen shut, as it had been for almost an hour after she’d struck him. Now it didn’t even hurt, and it was nothing more than a light pink discoloration that would be gone by morning.

“We keep telling you that we do not intend to hurt you, and yet I did so out of anger,” she said.

“So why did you?” Peter questioned as she appeared about to move away. “I mean, it’s nothing more than I expected, but most kidnappers don’t apologize after hitting their captive.”

Irritation and anger crossed her face then, looking much more familiar than the almost-sad look she’d been wearing a moment before. But a moment later, she visibly forced the anger away to bring patience to the fore.

“We did not set out to kidnap a child, when we decided to go after Tony Stark,” she said. “We only wanted to harm _him_. Force him to face justice.” She didn’t say anything about the thoughts she no doubt heard swirling around in his head, the ones that insisted that Tony didn’t need to face justice because he hadn’t done anything intentionally, or that it wasn’t their right to bring it to him even if he _did_ deserve it.

“So, it’s my own fault for getting in the middle of it?” Peter guessed she was going to say, raising an eyebrow as irritation rose in him. “If I’d stayed away from Tony to begin with, I wouldn’t have to be a pawn in your little game?”

Wanda looked frustrated at this. “ _No_ ,” she insisted. “It’s not your fault. You were just there, and it was the easiest way. We did not know that you were Spiderman.”

“You know, funny enough, that really doesn’t make me feel any better,” Peter snapped. “If I was just some kid, I would have a lot of wounds by now that _wouldn’t_ heal in a few hours. The only reason I’m _not_ more harmed right now is _because_ I heal so quickly. It has nothing to do with your oh-so- _caring_ attitude and your desire not to hurt me. Don’t pretend like this is _my_ fault just because I happen to be Spiderman.”

Wanda looked stricken at this, realization passing over her eyes as her gaze darted over Peter’s slight form, like she was looking for any wounds she might not have noticed. But a moment later, she tightened her lips and forced the expression back, a look of blankness with a smidge of irritation taking over her face again.

“That is not what I meant, and not what I was trying to say,” she told him in annoyance. “I only meant that this was not in our plans, and so we have been – what is that American expression? – ‘winging it’ since we got you. I did not think Pietro would have to run so far in our plans, and I am very protective of him. Once he stopped running, I was more concerned that he had not exhausted himself to the point of passing out. I projected my frustrations onto you, and when you fought back I lashed out to the point of striking you.”

“You know, there’s a way that you don’t have to worry about this again,” Peter suggested caustically. “Letting me go? You won’t be running from the Avengers, I won’t be dealing with my body healing itself after you use your wispy magic. Win-win.”

“We are _not_ letting you go,” Wanda said, face contorting into a snarl before she turned from him. “Gah, you are impossible; I cannot talk with you. Just go to sleep.”

“What, you’re not gonna use your mind-whammy to _force_ me to sleep?” Peter called acerbically after her. “Seems out of character.”

“Do not tempt me,” Wanda snarled, stalking back to the bed just as Pietro joined them from the bathroom. The older boy looked between them, clearly wondering if he was going to have to break up another fight, but they seemed to be separating on their own already.

Peter rolled his eyes, knowing that if she was still listening in on his thoughts that she would see it, even if she couldn’t actually _see_ it with her back turned.

Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t, but either way as she got into bed she looked back at him with eyes aglow in her anger. “I will begin practice again tomorrow and soon enough you won’t have to see us _ever_ again,” she told him, and then mockingly repeated his own words back to him: “Win-win.”

***

The curtains that Peter had noticed the night before turned out to be _very_ good blackout curtains, which he discovered when he woke up and looked over to the alarm clock on the dresser that told him it was past noon, despite the fact that it was no brighter in the room than it would normally be at about sunrise.

Sitting up quickly, Peter then noticed that the shackles around his ankles were gone, where last he remembered they had still been as present as ever, preventing him from getting into a completely comfortable position to sleep in. He hadn’t woken up when they were removed, and he had the sudden thought – what if they had already practiced that morning, and Wanda had succeeded in taking away some of his memories, and that’s why it was so late in the day? What if he hadn’t been asleep at all, but unconscious?

Leery now, Peter’s gaze searched through the room, that ever-persistent buzz that came with being around the siblings still there. The bed they had slept in the night before was empty, bed all made in a way that suggested they wouldn’t be returning to it for a while.

So the twins had been awake for a while now, Peter confirmed to himself. His heart began to beat harder in his panic, wondering what it was he might have missed in the last few hours, wondering if anything worse had happened. He ran a mental check over his body, noting that there didn’t seem to be any aches or pains, so at least there was that, but still he couldn’t be sure that his _mind_ was still safe –

His Spidey sense buzzed, telling him someone was in the doorway to the bedroom, and without pause or thought, he spun and threw his webs out at the one his senses told him was a danger.

He blinked, and then Pietro was beside the bed, and he realized that it must have been the other boy in the doorway, and he had dodged the webs with his super speed before coming closer to him. The knowledge of who it was didn’t make him feel any better, though.

“Hey, easy,” Pietro said in his thickly accented voice, putting his hands up as though he were surrendering. Peter wasn’t fooled, though; if they were really surrendering, Peter wouldn’t be there anymore.

“Your thoughts are so loud they were practically screaming at Wanda,” Pietro continued. “We figured it would be better that I came to check that you were okay.”

“Okay?” Peter snapped, clenching and unclenching his fists to restrain himself from attempting to clock the other boy. Pietro’s eyes followed the movement, but he didn’t look concerned. And why should he? Peter was no match to him or his sister – he could be squashed as easily as any real spider, and the past few days had made him all too aware of that fact.

“How on _earth_ am I supposed to be okay?” Peter continued, ire and panic increasing the more his thoughts whirled at him. “What happened? Why am I uncuffed now?”

Pietro’s brow creased with confusion at why he appeared to be upset at being partially free. “I convinced Wanda to take them off while you slept,” he said. “You looked like you needed it.”

“But – you – _ughh!_ ” Peter shoved his hands into his hair, giving the locks a harsh tug in hopes that things would begin to make sense with the mild pain. They didn’t, but Peter did feel a bit calmer at the action, so he did it again, taking deep breaths to force himself to calm further before looking at Pietro again, who looked faintly alarmed at his actions.

“So, that’s all that happened?” Peter clarified in a more composed voice. “I just…slept in?”

“Yes,” Pietro confirmed, still looking confused.

Peter wasn’t sure he completely believed him, but he supposed that pushing further wouldn’t give him the correct answer, whichever answer it may be. If they had decided not to tell him they took some of his memories away, he figured that there wouldn’t be anything that could convince them to tell the truth.

“Why would you ask her to do that?” Peter asked the other boy, smoothing his hair into some semblance of order. He hadn’t brushed his hair since Thursday, and it definitely showed in the rat’s nest he now sported. He had taken a shower that first morning in Canada, but even then his hair had needed to simply air dry. At least now he wasn’t having to deal with product making his hair stick in awkward places – it was just his own natural disaster of a scalp.

Pietro was quiet for a minute, thoughtful as he pondered Peter’s question. As he thought, he ran and grabbed a comb from the nearest bathroom, and returned in the space of a blink to give it to Peter. Peter didn’t want to be grateful, but he was glad that he was able to smooth his hair some, and he quickly combed it into his usual style through touch alone.

Finally Pietro answered him, saying, “I know that we have not treated you in the best manner since…”

“Kidnapping me?” Peter deadpanned when Pietro trailed off. He fiddled with the teeth of the comb, running his thumb over them in an absent but somehow soothing motion.

Not even having the decency to look bothered, Pietro nodded and went on, “And you would be well within your rights to despise and loathe us.”

“Who says I don’t?” Peter said dryly.

“ _You_ do,” Pietro said certainly. When Peter stared at him, Pietro explained, “Wanda tells me you have some sort of tingle when you are about to be in danger or be hurt, without knowing where it comes from. When I came bursting in to that cabin yesterday, I saw you move to cover Wanda, despite the fact that you were cuffed at wrist and ankle and could not do much against someone who would wish either of you harm. You did not know what the threat was; you did not know it was me. And yet your first instinct was still to protect one of your captors from harm. That is why I asked Wanda that we leave you unbound today – to show you that we have some measure of trust toward you.”

Peter stared at the boy, mind whirling. He had only vaguely realized that he had moved to protect Wanda the day before, and hadn’t thought about it at all once Pietro had grabbed them up and began running. He wondered what that said about him and his chances of developing Stockholm Syndrome, if he was already in protective mode toward one of his captors. And, it was the bitchier of his captors, which meant his instinct would probably be to protect Pietro too, should a situation call for it.

Did that make him weak? He wondered. Or did it just mean that he cared about keeping _everyone_ safe, regardless of their actions? Heroes weren’t supposed to stand back and let someone else be hurt, but what about when the one that might be hurt wasn’t doing good things? When they might be able to be classed as a villain? Peter didn’t know the answer to that, and it bothered him.

Then his mind caught up to the last part of Pietro’s statement, and he raised an eyebrow up at him. “You realize that, given the chance, I’m going to try escaping, right?”

Pietro shrugged, unbothered. “We were never under any delusions that that was not the case,” he informed him. “Just as I am certain that should you try, we would easily capture you again. But that is no reason for you to be any more uncomfortable than our plan calls for while you are here.”

“Right,” Peter muttered resentfully, tossing the comb aside. “You don’t have to be chained up to be a prisoner.”

He squinted up at Pietro again when a thought occurred to him. “You’ve never really explained – why _are_ you doing this? All I know is that Tony apparently killed your parents and your town. Was it when he was cleaning up his company? Who were they?”

Pietro’s expression closed off at his questions, looking a lot less friendly than he had a moment before. Peter thought that Pietro wasn’t going to answer, but then the boy gave a short sigh and sat down at the foot of the bed.

“I will give you the short version,” he decided. “My home country of Sokovia – we were at war. A lot of unrest about the government – it was unsettling for longer than I can remember. We never really recovered after the fall of the Soviet Union; things only grew worse. It was not so bad where we lived; there were not many people. But we were still close enough to Novi Grad – the capital of Sokovia – that when things got very bad there, we were pulled into it.”

Pietro began picking at a thread on the cuff of his sleeve, something Peter distantly recognized as a nervous tic. “When we were eleven, our city was bombed. Wanda and I, we lived with our parents in an apartment building. We heard the bombs falling on others, and our parents told us to hide under our bed, hoping that the frame might protect us if a bomb fell on us. One did.”

Pietro paused, but Peter remained silent, heart aching despite himself for what he expected to come next, the idea of what the two of them had been through before they had entered their teens.

“One half of the apartment building crumbled – the side our parents were on. They were buried underneath the rubble – we hope that they died quickly, that they were dead before they were buried. The half that we were on was intact. We were still hiding under the bed when a mortar shell landed a mere meter from us.

“For two days, we lied there, terrified that the bomb would explode, but also wishing for it. Our parents were gone, and as far as we knew, everyone we knew was now dead. We did not eat or sleep, just sat there and stared at the white ‘Stark Industries’ emblazoned on the side. It wasn’t until rescue teams came that anyone even knew that there were survivors in that building, because we did not move or make a sound in all that time.”

“Shit,” Peter breathed, sympathy welling up for the two of them.

Pietro didn’t seem to have heard him. “We were children, but we were old enough to go out on our own, or so the government decided. Anyone over the age of ten could not be helped. There were too many orphans to keep track of everyone or help everyone – especially as the unrest and violence continued. We lived on the streets or in abandoned homes and apartments with other people in the same situation as us until we were sixteen.”

“What happened when you were sixteen?” Peter asked when Pietro didn’t seem intent on continuing, lost in his own thoughts as he stared off into nothing.

Pietro didn’t jump, but he did seem a bit startled when he looked back at Peter, seeming to have almost forgotten that he was there. The haunting darkness in his eyes was shoved quickly back, but not before Peter saw what seemed to be _pain_ filling them at the memories he had relived.

“That has nothing to do with Stark,” he answered in an almost teasing voice, were it not for the heaviness only thinly veiled in his eyes. “You have run out of questions.”

Peter took the not-so-subtle hint to drop that line of questioning, but he still had questions about Tony. “But I don’t get it,” he said. “Yeah, Stark Industries was the one that made the bomb, but why are you blaming _Tony_ for that? He’s not the one who bombed your country.”

“He as good as _did_ ,” Pietro said, voice suddenly harsher. “He made those weapons with no regard to anyone else – all for _America_ ,” he sneered the last word, voice dripping with disgust. “Or so he claims. He is a disgusting capitalist _pig_ who only cares for sex, drugs, and _money_. Regardless of who is caught in the crossfire.”

Peter leaned back slightly at the vitriol spewing from the boy, but once Pietro stopped talking, he insisted, “But Tony’s not like that. That’s just what the news says about him, but you can’t _really_ blame Tony without _knowing_ him. Otherwise you’re just lashing out at a figure, or an idea, or what someone represents, but not a person. But the _person_ is the one who ends up hurt.”

“He created the weapons, yes?” Pietro demanded. “And his company signs off on who buys the weapons. He was supporting those who would kill their own people, all for a bit of _money_.”

Suddenly Peter remembered a detail from his story, and he blurted – “You were eleven? When it happened?” Pietro nodded, neither of them needing him to clarify just what “it” was. “And now you’re what, nineteen? Twenty?”

“Almost twenty,” Pietro confirmed, clearly not knowing where Peter was going with his pointed questions and therefore only answering them, with no additional detail.

“Nine years ago Obadiah Stane was running the company,” Peter pointed out. “He was the one in charge of sales – yeah, Tony was a bastard at the time; he’ll tell you that himself. But _all_ he did was design the weapons. He technically owned the company, but he didn’t know that Stane was evil and was dealing under the table, so he let him run it. Even if the person to sign off on it could be blamed for the bombing, it wasn’t Tony; it was _Stane_.”

“An easy scapegoat, considering the man is _dead_ ,” Pietro sneered in disgust.

“Yeah, because Tony killed him for it,” Peter said impatiently. “Don’t you remember when Iron Man appeared, and he destroyed all of Stark Industries weapons? Or when Tony completely revamped his company to focus elsewhere, because he didn’t want even the _risk_ of his weapons falling into the wrong hands again? Tony is _not_ the one you…”

“Enough,” Pietro cut him off suddenly. “You asked why, and I have answered. I have no interest in hearing more Stark propaganda.”

“It’s not propaganda if it’s _true_ …” Peter began heatedly, but Pietro cut him off again.

“Wanda will be waiting for us downstairs,” he said. “Come. We have plans for the day.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I definitely had Pietro call Peter's Spidey senses a "tingle" as a nod to MCU canon. I make no excuses, or apologies.


	6. Chapter 6

It was approaching evening when Wanda put a pause to her practicing, and Peter was simultaneously glad for it and worried. Did she want to stop because she was tired after all the work? Was it because she didn’t need much practice for it anymore and she wanted a break? Was she just bored? Peter didn’t know her reasons for stopping after only a couple of hours, and it made him nervous.

But he was also glad, because it was both boring and distressing every time she practiced. The way she poked around in his brain felt like prodding at a bruise or in some instances at a cut. Occasionally images would flash past his view – some pleasant, and others decidedly _not_ so.

Once, he saw an image of Gwen in his mind’s eye, and it seemed that Wanda was going to push more into those memories before he somehow seemed to shove at her mental presence with a very firm _‘NO’_. He was a little surprised when she backed off from that topic, but not ungrateful. He didn’t want to relive the events of his sophomore year, where she had died after he had failed to save her and a few short months later it was Aunt May who had died of cancer of all things, and shortly thereafter he had gone to live on his own on the streets.

It was undoubtedly the worst year of his life, and he didn’t want to spiral out of control. There was always this lingering fear in the back of his mind that something similar might happen again, and he would lose his ability to speak again. Reliving that year, while trapped with the twins, was definitely _not_ a circumstance he wanted to leave to chance.

“I’m hungry,” Wanda said after announcing her intent to put her practicing on pause. “And I want Paprikash.”

Pietro paused and blinked at her, looking bewildered, but he went along with it, saying, “We have no сметана here.”

“Is that sour cream?” Peter asked suddenly from his spot over on the couch, perking up. “In Sokovian?” When they looked at him with startled expressions, he explained, “That’s sour cream in Russian.”

“Yes – I had forgotten the English word,” Pietro said after a moment. “You know Russian?”

“I’m not like, fluent,” Peter clarified. “But I generally know what people are saying. My responses aren’t super reliable, though. I know Sokovian has some Slavic roots – I would probably understand more of what you’re saying with more Russian practice.” He snorted suddenly. “Don’t worry – I’m not privy to your super secret conversations.”

There was another poke in his mind, and Peter allowed it with a feeling of resignation. He knew Wanda was just checking the information, seeing whether or not he was lying, but the constant unwanted intrusion was annoying and pretty violating. The best he could manage to withstand her mental attacks was thinking about things he knew she wasn’t after, because it was more effort on her part then to go searching. But any actual attempts to get rid of her completely had been in vain, and he didn’t know if that spoke to his own weakness against such attacks or her own skills. He supposed that it didn’t really matter.

“Well, we must get some sour cream for the Paprikash, then,” Wanda decided after pulling out from Peter’s mind. “And some chicken. Most of these people have only canned foods and frozen vegetables.”

“We can check the ingredients here before we go,” Pietro suggested.

“‘We?’” Peter repeated, wondering at who that included and hoping that the two of them were leaving him here alone. It might give him the chance to escape.

Wanda gave him a Look, clearly catching the trails of his thoughts despite not going actively searching right then. “All three of us,” she elucidated. “It is the only way to watch you with the least amount of risk.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Peter said with a sigh, disappointed but not surprised. “Alright – we gonna go now, or once it’s dark?”

“We should be okay to go now,” Wanda said, glancing at the clock on the wall. It told them that it was just a quarter after four. “Get your shoes – we will check for ingredients in the cupboards.”

Twenty minutes later Pietro parked the car next to the sidewalk of a small strip mall, and Peter let out the breath he was holding, suddenly understanding why and appreciating so much more the fact that Wanda had been the only one to drive thus far. Pietro drove like a _maniac_ , and although Wanda appeared outwardly calm as they zipped at eighty miles an hour down a road where the posted speed limit was thirty, Peter couldn’t bring himself to relax. He _knew_ that Pietro had to be able to think faster than others because of his super speed while running and he didn’t run into things _then_ , and thus it would be very unlikely that he wouldn’t be able to stop the car from getting into an accident. He knew this, and yet he still couldn’t bring himself to loosen or release the death grip he had on the seat. When they finally parked, Peter winced when he saw the torn fabric of the seat under his fingers. He hadn’t meant to grip it that hard.

“I would say you get used to it, but that would be a lie,” Wanda told him dryly, looking back at him before opening her car door and stepping out.

“Shut up, Wanda,” Pietro told his sister good naturedly as he got out his own door. “I drive perfectly safely.”

Forcing his limbs to start working again, Peter followed them on slightly shaky legs into – a clothing store?

Glancing around, Peter wondered if he had missed something obvious, but Pietro was making a beeline to the men’s section and Wanda was following more sedately behind him. Peter confusedly followed after them – weren’t they out to get the ingredients for the Paprikash?

“You are still cold,” Wanda explained, clearly catching his thoughts as she turned to glance at him following behind her. “We thought we should get you a sweater to keep warmer before we are outside to get food.”

Peter blinked at her as she came to a stop next to where Pietro was examining the hoodies folded against the wall. “Where did you guys even get the money for all of this?” he wondered.

“There was an envelope in the back of the drawer of one of the dressers,” Wanda said easily, joining Pietro in searching for a good hoodie. “Probably their emergency money. They won’t miss a few hundreds – there was thousands of dollars in there.”

“That’s still _stealing_!” Peter hissed, glancing around.

Wanda sighed and rolled her eyes. “If you don’t want me stealing _that_ , then we will be stealing a sweater,” she threatened. “But we will be using the money to buy groceries, so your arguing is pointless.”

Peter subsided, but he still felt uneasy, and he vowed that once – _if_ – he remembered this place, that he would come back and replace the money the people who lived there had lost. Stealing wasn’t good, no matter _how_ much that person had left.

Wanda scoffed at his thoughts, looking like she was about to say something before Pietro cut in, “Look – this one is perfect!” and thrust a hoodie in Peter’s direction.

Peter looked at it, and despite himself he cracked a smile of amusement at the graphic. There was a little cartoon neuron against the black fabric, and around it were the words, “Me, nerdy? I think neuron to something.” It was something that he could see getting for himself, or that someone in his family would gift to him. Science puns were his favorite.

“Or there is this one,” Wanda suggested, holding one up in a shade of green that reminded Peter of the Hulk. There was a graphic of a loading bar, and above it were the words “Biology major loading”.

“I’m a Biophysics major,” Peter corrected her with a frown, and snatched the hoodie from Pietro. It really wasn’t that big of a deal, but he was still upset at Wanda and Pietro’s constant theft, and while yes Pietro was a willing part of it, it was just easier to blame on Wanda because she was just _meaner_. Was it childish, choosing Pietro’s suggestion because of that? Hell yes, but Peter wasn’t in denial about that, unlike some certain _other_ people.

He couldn’t help feeling a little like he’d just played into Wanda’s hands though when she smirked a little at him. With a huff, he made his way to the cashier waiting in the front of the store.

He had to wait a couple of minutes for the other two to show up though, because as they were following after him, Wanda got distracted by a display of leather jackets, and grabbed another one for herself that didn’t seem much different from the one she already had, excepting the fact that it had a hood made out of grey sweatshirt material. She also successfully convinced Pietro to pick one out in his size that was a shade of silvery-blue that almost matched his eyes. This one also had a hood attached, but Wanda was telling him as they got to the register that she would remove it for him later.

They quickly paid – or, Wanda paid – for the outerwear, and Peter pulled the hoodie on while Wanda bullied Pietro into wearing his own. Hers was already on, old jacket in her hand, despite the fact that Peter hadn’t seen her even make a movement to switch them out.

“Какой ты красивый,” it sounded like she told him in a teasing voice when he finally relented, and Peter was pretty sure he understood that one, close enough to Russian as it was. The vowels were clearer than Russian typically was, but it still sounded similar enough that Peter felt his guess was at least somewhat accurate to what she had said.

As they entered a market further down the strip mall, Peter kept half expecting someone to recognize him as Tony Stark’s kid, despite the fact that his face wasn’t very public. And yet, no one gave the three of them a second look. Peter supposed that three barely-adults wasn’t _too_ out of the norm, but still he thought someone must have noticed that Peter was very plain and frumpy looking – especially in the new hoodie that must have been a 3XL or 4XL for how it hung around him like a dress – while Pietro and Wanda’s own new jackets only accentuated the fact that they were jaw-droppingly gorgeous. (What? Sure, they were his kidnappers and captors, but he had _eyes_.) He _had_ to stick out like a sore thumb in this company, and yet no one seemed concerned or alarmed at the clear dissimilarities between him and them.

Of course, he reflected as they walked back to the car, grocery bags in hand, he supposed that it was a good thing no one had asked any questions. Just like his thoughts with the border guard going into Canada, he didn’t want anyone else to get caught in the middle of the twins’ crazy revenge plot. He had gotten to a point where he believed that they didn’t really want to hurt anyone else, but he wasn’t certain that they wouldn’t decide that the ends justified the means and go harming civilians anyway who tried to stop them. Peter wasn’t willing to risk it.

Pietro and Wanda chatted on the way back, seemingly more cheerful after their trip out and looking forward to making some sort of dish that Peter vaguely remembered from high school as a Sokovian comfort food. He believed that bit, considering the fact that both of them knew the recipe by heart, and had probably learned it as children. Peter wished he had memories like that, but Aunt May hadn’t really enjoyed cooking and Uncle Ben worked enough that it fell on his wife to make dinner most nights. Thus, it hadn’t seemed important at the time for Peter to learn from her – more often than not he was doing homework while she prepared it. He wished he had known what the future held, that he would want to know at least _one_ recipe to remember his aunt and uncle by, but hindsight was 20/20 and all that. Peter _did_ vaguely remember that Uncle Ben had a special recipe for cinnamon rolls, but it was a rare occasion when he would take the time to make them. Peter thought wistfully how he wished that he had sat with him while he made them at least _once_ , but too little too late.

They were about halfway back when there was a sudden loud _bang_ that reverberated through the car, sending it careening off the road into the dry shrubbery for a couple of heart-stopping moments before the car jerked to a halt with the force of Pietro suddenly slamming on the brakes. Heart pounding, Peter’s brain caught up to him that based on the sound of the bang, the tire must have blown out.

Wanda had paused, and Peter noticed that her hands were glowing red just before her lip curled and she snarled out a curse under her breath, throwing open the car door and getting out. Peter quickly followed, uncertain what was happening but it seemed to be not good.

“Get back in the car!” Wanda barked as soon as his feet touched gravel and dirt, but she didn’t pause to enforce her order, instead throwing the biggest ball of red light that Peter had yet to see from her toward the hill on the other side of the road, probably about a quarter of a mile away. There was no time to process this before a familiar-sounding _bang_ echoed through the desert and Wanda was staggering back with a sharp cry, blood spilling from her shoulder just as Peter processed that _this_ bang was a gunshot.

“Take that as your only warning, or the next one will be through your head!” Someone shouted, and Peter’s heart leaped suddenly with hope. _Wade!_

Pietro growled something in Sokovian under his breath, disappearing in a blur, and Peter had a moment of worry as Pietro returned a moment later, a thin slash down the side of his neck bleeding freely but otherwise seemingly fine. Peter was more concerned with the blood that _didn’t_ seem to be his currently staining the front of his shirt – what had Pietro done?

“I can shoot with my other hand too, dumbass!” Wade’s voice called out. “Hand Petey-pie over and I won’t have to unalive you today!”

Pietro was about to return to Deadpool, probably to get rid of the _other_ hand, but Peter was concerned with the way Wanda hadn’t risen to her feet yet, still clutching painfully at her own shoulder where the bullet had pierced her, and he dropped to his knees next to her to help keep pressure on the wound. He didn’t know if it had hit anything serious or vital, but he wanted to help, despite everything she had done and planned to do to him so far.

Pietro clearly took issue with his movement though, probably assuming the worst of him, and in a moment he was at Peter’s side, shoving him roughly out of the way and leaning over her protectively, blocking most of her from Peter’s view.

“Stay _away_ from her!” he snarled, sounding angrier and more dangerous than Peter had ever heard or expected from the other boy, making the hairs on his neck stand on end. With wide, surprised eyes, he leaned back, raising his hands in yield.

“I just wanted to help,” he told him honestly, eyes trailing to Wanda as she gasped for breath.

“Can’t take him,” Wanda gasped, patting her brother’s arm with a bloodied hand. “We need him. Go take care of Deadpool. We will deal with this later.”

Pietro looked torn, but when he finally decided to obey her request and began to turn, there was a sudden very familiar sound getting louder of rocket boots firing – Iron Man was on his way, and coming in fast. No doubt everyone else was behind him.

And Peter could see the look on their faces – they were not going to surrender. They were willing to fight to the death together rather than be captured by the one they saw as their most hated and bitter enemy. And yes, they were his captors, but his heart squeezed with the sudden reminder that they still weren’t that much older than him, and they were _hurting_. That was why they were doing this. If he could soothe that hurt, they wouldn’t do things like this anymore – they would have no reason to. They weren’t bad people; they had just made bad choices.

But the rest of his family didn’t know that – they would gun the twins down without hesitation if they thought Peter was in danger, before Peter could tell them anything. And even if they did hold back, the twins wouldn’t, so certain that they were right in their choices that they could see no alternative.

The only solution from this would be if they were not forced into a confrontation. And the decision needed to be made quickly, because Peter knew how fast Iron Man could arrive – once you heard him, he was mere _seconds_ away.

All of this passed through his head in the instant after he heard the rocket boots, and he made a snap decision, grabbing Pietro’s arm to get his attention.

“Go,” he said quickly. “I can keep them distracted. Take Wanda, and _run_.”

Pietro’s face was filled with suspicion and incredulousness, but either Wanda had heard Peter’s thoughts or she was having the same thoughts of her own and took the chance, and she said, “Pietro, let’s go.”

“Keep the wound elevated above her heart,” Peter directed, remembering bits and pieces from his high school health class. When Pietro looked at him still with that suspicious look, Peter emphasized, “ _Go_! I won’t tell them about you guys.”

Clearly Wanda was searching through his mind then, because she was the one to understand that by his statement about not telling anyone, he meant that he wouldn’t share the personal, painful details they had shared with him when they thought he would be forgetting it all soon. He still had no intention of letting them go free forever from this – he just needed the time to explain to the others that he thought they could be rehabilitated, and not killed on sight, before they went out looking for them again.

And so, as Wanda understood these thoughts he didn’t have time to say, her pain-filled expression turned into one of furiousness and determination.

“No,” she snarled, lifting her hands from where she had been pressing on the bullet wound. Those familiar scarlet tendrils glowed around her hands, and Peter’s Spidey sense rose in faint alarm. “You won’t.”

The scarlet blasted toward Peter just as Pietro disappeared in a blur, running off into the empty desert. But Peter didn’t notice Pietro running away with his sister in his arms – the red took over his vision, and there was a brief spike of pain in his head before he collapsed, vision darkening into black nothing.

***

Peter sighed a little as he woke up, head aching a little but otherwise feeling fairly well-rested. This was enough out of the norm that he opened his eyes as soon as he realized it, and was further confused by the sight of the ceiling in his bedroom in the Tower being there to greet him.

“Hey, JARV,” Peter greeted with a yawn, rubbing his eyes. “What time is it?”

“Hello, Peter,” JARVIS returned the greeting, sounding as warm and welcoming as he always had. “It is two forty-seven PM.”

“Huh,” Peter said, climbing out of bed and shuffling out from his bedroom. He was starving – Dad probably had lunch waiting for him by now.

“Petey!” a familiar voice exclaimed as he entered the living room, and a moment later well-known muscled arms wrapped tightly around him, pinning his own arms to his sides with the strength of it.

“Wade!” Peter exclaimed in delight, hugging him back as best as he was able with his trapped arms. “I didn’t know you were here! Did I get conked in the head last night or something? I don’t remember how I got here.”

Wade released him, but before he could answer, another set of arms engulfed him from behind, comforting in their familiarity and the scent of gunpowder and chocolate that accompanied them.

“Thank god, you’re _finally_ awake, kid,” his Dad muttered into his hair. “Don’t scare me like that again, y’ hear?”

“Well, I didn’t _mean_ to sleep that long,” Peter said, a little confused at the residual worry and stress that he could sense in the older man, but nonetheless turning a little so he could return the hug in kind. “What happened?”

“Damn, the witch got you good,” Wade said with a whistle that didn’t hide the worry in _his_ posture, which was just strange enough that Peter began to feel uneasy, like he was missing something important but he just didn’t know _what_. “I saw this huge ball of red, but by the time I got there they were gone. Too bad, I would’ve liked to shove my katanas up _each_ of their assholes.”

“Wait – who was it?” Peter wondered as he pulled away from a seeming reluctant Bucky, mentally running through the rolodex of villains they typically faced and coming up empty on anyone who could produce a “ball of red” in _any_ sort of capacity. “And they got away?”

“We don’t know who they were – couldn’t get a look at their faces,” Wade said. “And Tony wasn’t close enough yet for JARVIS to catch an image of ’em either. But they’re clearly bad news bears, if you couldn’t get away from them for so long and they disappeared so quickly. But don’t worry, Baby Boy – we’re gonna find them, and I’m going to introduce them so sweetly to Bea and Arth…”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Peter interrupted, confusion only increasing the longer Wade went on, which wasn’t _completely_ out of the norm, but this time the topic had directly to do with _him_ and yet he still couldn’t make sense of it. “I couldn’t ‘escape’ from them? What does that mean? What happened?”

Wade and Bucky both paused at these questions, and it was Bucky who finally asked him the obvious one.

“Peter,” he said in a carefully light voice that still couldn’t completely hide the worry underneath, his eyes seeming more dark grey with it. “What day is it?”

Peter paused as well, because just by asking that question his Dad seemed to be implying that whatever answer Peter gave would be incorrect, and they just needed to confirm this for themselves. It was for this reason that Peter’s response came out sounding like a question. “…Friday?”

Bucky didn’t look shocked, but his eyebrows did wrinkle in concern while Wade began muttering furious curses under his breath – whether it was to the Boxes or to himself or the mysterious villains was unclear.

“JARVIS?” Bucky requested calmly, and the AI immediately understood the wordless request.

“It is Tuesday, the twenty-fourth of November,” JARVIS said, and even _he_ sounded concerned.

“Tuesday,” Peter repeated dumbly. “So…I missed…four days?”

It wasn’t really a question, and none of them answered him.

But they didn’t have to – Peter knew that they wouldn’t lie to him, not about this. If they said it was Tuesday, then it was Tuesday. But Peter didn’t remember anything since Thursday afternoon. He’d – gone to the library with Ned? And then…four days, erased. Where he’d apparently been with a couple of villains in that time, who had run away when his family had arrived.

Peter wondered – why had he forgotten? He hadn’t even recognized that the passage of time since his last memory was so long – it felt like just minutes ago that he’d been studying with his roommate at the campus library.

What the hell had happened in those four days?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HA! I bet y'all didn't expect to have six chapters of buildup! Or maybe you did, because I'm me. BUT! Now we are getting into my real plans for the story. It's gonna be epic. And from that, some of you may guess at what my plans are for redeeming the twins now. But if not, I'm not gonna spoil it. ;)
> 
> For anyone confused, to be clear: Wanda did NOT give Peter false memories about Tony as she has been planning to do. She's not able to do that yet - all she did here was remove Peter's memories of the past few days since meeting them. This way he can't identify them to the Avengers and they won't be caught. That's all - no need to panic about when Peter sees Tony next. It will be fine. It's like nothing happened at this point - everyone else just knows that he was kidnapped and kept for four days, but they don't know the identity of the kidnappers, let alone the motive. 
> 
> Anyway. Hope you're liking this fic so far - I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments! <3


	7. Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My best friend got married yesterday and this is all I have so far. It was going to be a part of the bigger chapter, but then with the way I’m taking it next this just fit better on its own. So, this is just an interlude for you guys. In any case, I hope you like it!
> 
> Possible squick warning for somewhat detailed description of a bullet being removed and the wound cleaned and dressed.

Wanda couldn’t help the quiet grunt of pain as Pietro eased her shirt away from her skin, causing her skin to tug after it as the dried blood had sealed shirt and skin together.

“Let me get water,” Pietro decided, unable to completely hide the worry from his voice. Not that he really attempted to – the twins had no secrets between them.

A moment later, the boy was back in the bathroom with a couple of sealed water bottles from the convenience store they had taken refuge in for the time being. Unscrewing one bottle, Pietro carefully poured it over the wound, tugging lightly to get the shirt to release with minimal pain.

“I have worn this jacket for less than a day and it is already ruined,” Wanda complained once Pietro had helped her to remove the shirt completely and carefully wiped clean the blood surrounding the wound that had stopped bleeding. He could see no exit wound, which meant that the bullet was still inside.

Pietro looked up incredulously at his sister’s complaint.

“Pretty sure we have bigger things to worry about, Wanda,” he reminded her.

Wanda shrugged a little, and then hissed when the movement obviously jostled the injury, apparently having forgotten to remain still after having been _shot_.

“Idiot,” Pietro muttered, and the fact that she didn’t shove him in retaliation showed just how much pain she was in. “I will need to cut you again to get the bullet out.”

“Well, get on with it,” Wanda gritted.

Pietro zoomed out of the bathroom again, glad that wherever they were in some place called “Idaho”, there was no one except the single cashier in the store, who was too busy watching Netflix on her phone to notice that there was anyone inside. He returned moments later with alcohol wipes, a pack of disposable razors, a mini sewing kit, and some sort of nail care set that he’d picked up solely for the fact that there was a pair of tweezers inside.

Wanda was the one to use her powers to remove the blades from one of the razors, seeing as how without more tools Pietro wouldn’t be able to, but after that Pietro was left to it. Although his sister was unlikely to admit it, he was pretty sure that she had exhausted herself by throwing that massive ball of magic at Peter Parker – hence why she couldn’t help out with the minor surgery herself. He was feeling close to collapsing himself, but Wanda needed his help for just long enough to patch up the injury and find a place to sleep. (Which was much harder to come by in this place. Idaho was a wasteland.)

“What did you do to the kid?” Pietro wondered, half because he was genuinely curious and half because he wanted to distract Wanda from the pain. “That last bit of magic, what was it?”

“I made him forget,” Wanda panted, grimacing and clenching her eyes shut as she felt the tweezers poking around inside her. Tears squeezed unwillingly out from the corners of her eyes, and Pietro tried to go faster, but he didn’t want to injure her further and he’d never done anything like this before. “I know I could not yet do enough that our plan would be successful, so I wiped everything clean from Thursday afternoon.”

“I don’t think anyone could identify us later,” Pietro murmured, easing the bullet out and setting it on the ground before unscrewing the cap on the other bottle to clean the blood that had spilled from the reopened wound. “I think we got away quickly enough, and I was at least able to grab our backpack.”

“Good,” Wanda gritted as Pietro quickly swiped alcohol wipes over her shoulder before tossing them aside to thread the needle in the sewing kit, figuring that stitches would have been better to do first, to stop the continued dribble of blood before he tried cleaning it up. They paused their speaking as he stitched her up, he because he wanted to focus on doing it right and she because she was holding her breath through the pinching pain.

“I have already come up with an idea how we can get close to him again,” Wanda started once Pietro had tied off the ends of the thread and wiped the rest of the area clean with new wipes.

Pietro gave her an exasperated look as he opened a Band-Aid the size of her palm. “Wanda, you have just been _shot_ ,” he stressed. “Try healing from that before we start back into revenge plans.”

Wanda waved her free hand as Pietro sealed the Band-Aid over the wound, covering it completely so that nothing would catch on anything. “Yes, yes,” she said with a sigh. “I thought you might say that. The plan doesn’t require immediate action, anyway. But I _have_ a plan.”

“We will discuss this later,” Pietro told her, leaving no room for argument as he helped her into a tee shirt he’d snatched on their first run through into the bathroom at the back of the store. It had a moose on it, which he had thought was probably better than the one with a potato on it when he’d grabbed it. “For now, focus on healing. Once you are well enough, we will see about this change in plans for Stark and for Peter Parker.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all, the Stranger Things fandom snatched me up and refused to let me go. It's not even my usual genre, but man do I love it. And that's why this chapter took so long coming. This trend may or may not continue; we'll see. XD

Peter was glad to be back in school. And, not just back in school, but with a new term and a new year ahead of him. It filled him with a renewed sense of hope, that maybe things would be better this year, would be calmer, maybe. Or, as calm as he could expect when he still went out as Spiderman.

Ever since the weekend before Thanksgiving, which he _still_ couldn’t remember, everyone had been especially protective of him. It got to a point where even Wade was insisting on following him around on every _single_ patrol. Peter knew that Wade sometimes randomly left the country for some job or another, and yet the older man hadn’t left New York since that weekend. He was always nearby, and Peter loved the guy, but it did get old.

If it wasn’t Wade with his hovering when he went out as Spiderman, it was Ned hovering when he went back to school after Thanksgiving break. Apparently Peter had been snatched from the school library in broad daylight, and Ned was so leery of it happening again that he practically glued himself to his side. When they were in classes that they didn’t share, he was constantly sending him texts to check up on him. Peter supposed he was at least lucky that it was college, and the professors didn’t care a bit about students with their phones out.

Ned had at least calmed down after a week or two where nothing happened and everything seemed normal, but he was definitely still protective. He’d also admitted to knowing that Peter was Spiderman, which would’ve been hard to keep secret when they had all explained how they knew Peter was missing so soon after he’d been kidnapped. Peter’d had a brief moment of panic that his roommate had figured it out so apparently easily, but when Ned had pointed out that he’d kept it a secret for this long already, Peter had calmed somewhat. Ned was right – the Filipino boy could clearly be trusted with this – especially considering the fact that when it counted, his knowledge had actually helped with getting help that could track him down. And then he’d given him some pointers on keeping his Spiderman secret a little less obvious – apparently he was too quick with his reflexes and sometimes he ran faster than it should have been possible, and when he was tired he sometimes forgot that he needed to _not_ use his web shooters to bring his cup of coffee closer to him; it didn’t matter if he thought no one was looking. There were eyes everywhere.

But the Avengers had each checked in with him constantly, be it through texting or calling or FaceTime or on one memorable occasion, waiting in his dorm room for him to come back from class. (He had very seriously told his dad that _really_ , he could just call him or at least warn him before taking part in some classic B&E, and Bucky had taken his words to heart. At least they’d had a pleasant dinner afterwards, though his dad had looked suspiciously at the waitress every time she’d come by to check on them, as though he suspected that she was going to try and kidnap Peter right there. That had been a little awkward.)

It got to a point where it was stifling, the fact that everyone he knew was always making sure he was where he was supposed to be, and the knowledge that even weeks later, JARVIS was running multiple searches for anyone with mutant powers that might match what little they had been able to gather when they had finally tracked down Peter being held captive by them. (Literally all they knew was that it was a boy and girl of indeterminate age between the ages of fifteen and forty, and one of them ran faster than light and the other had powers that showed like glowing red and could make him forget things. It wasn’t a lot to go on.)

Peter felt like he was a kid again, a feeling that he’d been trying to escape when he went off to college. Which didn’t mean that he didn’t want to be around them or feel the obvious care his family had for him, but he had been looking forward to some independence. Now with a kidnapping that he couldn’t even remember – and one that didn’t seem to have left him with any wounds either, so what was the big deal? – he was being smothered by everyone checking in with him like it was always minutes before a curfew he no longer had.

But it seemed to have been easing – at least a little bit – as the year drew to a close and it was almost six full weeks since he’d returned safe and sound back to New York. So now he walked with a spring in his step to his first class of the new semester, backpack heavy with books and arms weighed down almost as much with more.

It was cold as he walked across campus, wind biting his cheeks, and he hugged his books closer to him to try and preserve warmth. January was undoubtedly the worst time of the year, and he was properly bundled in a thick red parka that Natasha had gifted him for Christmas (accompanied by a little smirk and a statement that spiders needed to watch out for each other and make sure they didn’t freeze), a grey wool hat and matching scarf, and bright purple mittens that Clint had surprisingly knitted for him and shoved in his stocking. Peter was certain that they were supposed to be a gag gift – especially because the bright purple clashed _horribly_ with his red parka – but they were warm and well made and he insisted on wearing them anyway.

 _It could be colder, though,_ Peter supposed vaguely as he walked. _It’s not as cold as…_

The thought halted there, like it had run up against a wall, and Peter shook his head when that feeling of confused fogginess came over his thoughts again.

Bruce had told him that it was probably whatever the mutant had done to his memories, when his mind did that. His brain instinctively wanted to remember what had happened in those missing days, and so when he wasn’t thinking about it he would get the very beginning of a memory, but as soon as he realized it or came to something specific, it was like his brain shut down, going fuzzy and confused like it couldn’t understand why he couldn’t think of something, either. Peter still wasn’t sure what exactly triggered his brain into remembering something, but he’d become used to the moments of fuzziness like his brain was trying to reset, so he didn’t pause in his walking toward class.

But the fuzziness meant that he wasn’t exactly looking where he was going, and when he went to go automatically through the door to the building that had opened in front of him, his Spidey sense flared only briefly before he smacked directly into someone.

“Ow,” Peter gasped at the pain exploding through his nose, because whoever he’d run into was bigger than him and his face had slammed right into a chin, and fun fact about chins, they were exclusively bone and much harder than the cartilage that made up his nose. And there was no blood, thankfully, but still it startled him more than anything and his mitten-covered hand flew up to grab his face, other arm still clutching at his books instinctively so they didn’t fall from his arms.

“Sorry,” the one he’d run into said, and it was a guy, one with bright eyes and blond hair and Peter had the vague thought that the guy was attractive – at least from what he could see through eyes blurred with pain and the reflexive tears from the force to his nose. But then it clicked that the _other_ guy had apologized, which was dumb, because Peter was the one who hadn’t been watching where he was going and run into _him_.

“Don’t worry about it, man,” Peter pulled his hand reluctantly away from his face to wave dismissively at the guy, even as he continued through the doors to get to his class. “I’m stupid clumsy – I’ll be fine.”

He didn’t wait for a response, because it was just a passing conversation, and he really needed to find his class early so that he could get a coveted seat near the back of the class before others got there. He continued his journey, disappearing with the rest of the crowd into the hallway.

But if he had glanced back, he would have seen the guy’s expression shift into a very smug smile before he turned and walked away.

***

Ned had tried very hard to make sure he got as many classes with Peter as he could. This was easier to do, as they were both freshmen and needed to take the same generals in the first couple of semesters of school, but still getting their schedules matched up perfectly was impossible.

Also, Peter had in his first semester wanted to get as many science classes as he could, and hadn’t had the room for his English class. Ned had taken said class in the first semester, and now Peter was taking it in his second semester, and as protective of the guy as Ned was, he didn’t want to retake another English class. English _sucked_.

And so he left Peter to that class, the only class where he had to leave him alone, and the last class in both of their days. He supposed it would be fine – they only met Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and they had standing plans to meet for late lunch on those days – just to make sure nothing had happened to Peter in the hour and a half they were parted for.

He had half expected something to happen to Peter their first day back to classes, and couldn’t even pay attention to the professor in his civics class that day, because he was certain that everything would go to hell within the next couple of hours.

He knew that the rest of the Avengers – and _holy hell_ , he was actually part of a group chat with all of them now, what even was his life? – had come to the conclusion that whoever had kidnapped Peter was laying low now. They were hesitant though to believe that the location of the kidnapping had been anything other than a coincidence, though, and Ned just didn’t feel like they had the proper amount of panic or precautions as Peter went back to school in the new term.

Wade did, though. Wade had charged Ned very seriously with making sure Peter was safe in places Wade couldn’t go for fear of someone figuring out Peter was Spiderman, and the campus definitely fell under that purview. Ned was glad someone else understood that just because Peter had come back to campus after Thanksgiving and nothing had happened, that didn’t mean that he was safe on campus now.

The others were all still very protective of Peter, of course. But they had directed their attention to other avenues, thinking that the campus was a dead lead now. Ned didn’t really know what he could do to defend _Spiderman_ from a couple of other mutants, but he kept his eye out, because even if he couldn’t _do_ anything, he could at least raise the alarm to the others before it was too late.

So, as soon as class was letting out that first day back, Ned was bolting out of his seat and to the café at the corner they’d agreed to meet out, waiting outside despite the cold so that he could see as soon as Peter was in sight.

He had been waiting for almost a full five minutes – _five whole minutes, Parker!_ – when he finally saw the bright red parka that Peter had been wearing every day since Christmas, and his whole frame relaxed. Peter was okay – he was safe.

“How was your day?” Ned asked when Peter was close enough that he could talk in a normal voice.

“ _Fine_ , mother,” Peter groaned. Ned knew he was fed up with the hovering, but whatever. Better irritated than missing.

“Good,” Ned said primly. “Now c’mon, I’m freezing my balls off out here. You’re buying me hot chocolate.”

“Sure, and you can buy mine,” Peter snarked.

“You’ve got a deal, Parker,” Ned declared, stepping into the warmth of the café. Huffing and shaking his head in amusement, Peter followed behind him, the door closing behind them.

It seemed that half the university students had had the same idea they did, coming to the café for hot drinks after their classes, and there were no tables left by the time they had ordered their food. Ned really didn’t want to go outside in the cold again, especially after he had found out the further extent of Peter’s powers and the repercussions he could have from them. Staying warm was difficult for him, and where Ned had already ditched his hat and scarf after a minute inside the heated café, Peter was still bundled up tightly like they were still outside – mittens and all.

But as his eyes tracked the room, he saw a familiar face at one of the tables, partially hidden behind a laptop but still recognizable if for nothing else than her frizzy hair. He made a beeline for the young woman, trusting that Peter would follow behind him.

“MJ!” he greeted, plopping into the open seat across from her in the booth. “This is my friend Peter.”

MJ looked up from typing what was undoubtedly some essay on the history of oppression in America or something similar, raising a _very_ unimpressed eyebrow at him.

“Did I say you could sit there?” she said in her familiar dry voice.

“You didn’t have to,” Ned said cheerfully, undeterred. He knew her well enough by now to know that if she didn’t want them there, she would have kicked him in the leg when he sat down – which, come to think of it, was probably how she had kept her booth open thus far with how crowded it was in there.

“Well, don’t just stand there,” MJ said, turning her gaze to Peter, who was standing there uncertainly, despite Ned having told him all about MJ before, and her brand of humor and how people were kind of scared of her but he didn’t get why because she was pretty great.

Peter scooted into the seat beside Ned much more carefully, tentative and unsure for now. Whatever. He would get over it, Ned knew.

“Hi,” Peter greeted. “Already have an essay to work on?”

“No, just research,” MJ said, and didn’t elaborate further, which Ned had expected, but clearly Peter didn’t.

“Looks like you got here soon enough to snag a table,” Ned commented. “You have all early classes again?”

MJ hummed, taking a swig of her bubble tea. “I showed up a half hour ago and saw a guy sitting here who had been here since I had come in before classes, and I told him to move.” She didn’t elaborate, again, and Ned figured that she probably hadn’t even needed to make a verbal threat, based on the expressions he knew she was capable of.

At least Peter didn’t look even a little alarmed at MJ’s words – which was good; it meant he had learned enough from Ned’s talking about her that he at least had some expectation for what she should be like.

Just then Peter looked up, like he’d heard something, and said, “I’ll get those,” before scooting off the bench and picking his way through the crowd back to the counter.

MJ looked at Ned and raised an eyebrow again. “Don’t tell me I scared him off already,” she said, her incredulousness bleeding through her general apathetic expression.

“No, he’s just getting our food,” Ned promised. “He has really good hearing.”

MJ looked disbelieving, an expression that didn’t disappear when Peter returned to the table with the promised food and drinks they’d ordered in hand.

“Got you another muffin,” Peter told MJ, looking completely unbothered as he pushed the plate over to her and pulled his own scone and cup toward himself, leaving the rest of Ned’s food for him to grab.

MJ’s eyes went to the crumbs on the plate beside her, where there were blue smears from the blueberries that Peter had clearly noticed, as the muffin he gave her was also blueberry. Ned hadn’t noticed it until Peter’s comment and MJ’s reaction, and he was impressed at Peter’s observational skills, because usually he was a bit of a quack in that arena. Much as he loved the guy, he was pretty oblivious – case in point the fact that Ned had figured out in just a couple of weeks that Peter was Spiderman and Peter’d had no idea his cover was blown until he was literally _told_.

MJ’s shoulders relaxed a little, and she gave Peter a casual “thank you” before picking into the muffin like it was nothing, and when Ned felt Peter relax almost imperceptibly next to him, he suddenly understood.

Ned wasn’t sure if Peter had a crush on his friend, or if he just wanted to be friends with her, but the motivation for noticing what MJ had eaten and buying food for her (which was practically a proposal, for a college student) was still the same. He wanted to show that he was a friendly, and that he cared about her.

Ned felt something twist a little at the thought of Peter and MJ dating, but he shoved it aside. Peter really needed some normalcy in his life. Also, MJ was like a blast of cold reality, but one that came from a friend, and she was the best source to go to for normalcy without blinders. He was glad that Peter and MJ were on their way to friendship.

***

Peter didn’t care for his English class. He’d never liked having to read novels and write book reports on books that had been written more than fifty years ago. He understood that people viewed them as classics, but they were only “classics” because someone had decided it was their favorite book and it stayed in this weird balance between popularity and obscurity. An oxymoron, but most “classics” people just knew the general story of without having to read it – or if they _had_ read it, it was only because they had to for these stupid classes.

He could see the merit in writing a well-crafted paper. Making sure that everything made sense and didn’t just sound like rambling – yes, that was definitely necessary. But why did they always have to read some dry book to write about? Why couldn’t it be about _current_ issues? Or even _current_ books? At least books that were still relevant. _Frankenstein_ was not one of them.

But also he had read _Frankenstein_ in high school, so at least he remembered enough from _those_ stupid book reports that he didn’t really have to pay attention to the lecture going on then. He could instead doodle absentmindedly in his notebook, designs and formulas being recorded without thought.

His Spidey sense hummed a little bit – not enough to worry, but like an alert – and a moment later he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned to the girl in the desk next to him, who was looking at him like she was sorry for bothering him.

“Do you have an extra pen?” she whispered. “Mine ran out of ink.”

Peter wordlessly reached into his backpack, grabbing one that he was okay with the possibility of never getting back, and handed it over to her with a smile.

“Thanks,” she said with a smile in return.

She went back to her notebook, and Peter watched her from the corner of his eye. She had shown up to the second class of the semester. She hadn’t been there the first day, and he remembered because when she had sat down next to him in the second class he’d felt his Spidey sense hum in faint warning before it disappeared entirely a moment later. Any time she interacted with him, he felt his Spidey sense hum softly, and he had yet to figure out why, now three weeks into the term.

She was quiet, keeping mostly to herself. She wrote her notes in English, despite the fact that her accent was thick enough to tell him that she was probably a foreign exchange student. Her hair was dark, usually half hidden under a loose grey beanie when she sat down before she had to take it off so she didn’t get in trouble with the stupid dress code that said no hats in classrooms. She was probably about the same height as him, though she wore boots with blocky heels that raised her to be just a tad taller than him. She seemed generally unbothered by the cold most days, wearing primarily leather jackets, although on one particularly blistering cold day she had worn a plain hoodie underneath the jacket. She usually sat for a few minutes after class to write down the last of her notes before disappearing.

But other than all these observations Peter hadn’t realized he’d noted until he stopped to think about it, Peter really didn’t know anything about her – not even her name. But she always smiled at him when she sat down next to him, and before he left.

It was his Spidey sense that had kept him from saying anything at first, leery in the face of the unknown and what his instincts told him. But she had never done anything but smile at him, and just now ask for a pen, and she’d been sitting next to him for three weeks now. He was pretty sure she would have done something by now if his Spidey sense was accurate at all.

But she was pretty. And shy. And maybe she would be okay with friendship, and Peter was awkward but maybe she was a little bit too, considering the fact that she had seated herself next to him and still hadn’t introduced herself. Maybe she was waiting for him to do it.

So, it was with these thoughts in mind that after class, while she was writing the last of her notes, he didn’t leave immediately. Ned could wait, he decided, as he turned to her.

“I’m Peter,” he introduced himself, sticking out a hand.

She blinked at him, and then handed the borrowed pen back to him, which he took with a little bit of confusion because he had meant to shake her hand, not ask for his pen back.

And then a moment later her face went red and she covered it with her non-writing hand. “Oh my god, you meant a handshake,” she laughed a little, mortified and chagrined. “I’m _so_ sorry, this is so awkward.”

Peter laughed a little, even while he shoved the pen back into his bag for something to do with his hands now. “Don’t worry about it,” he assured her, rubbing the back of his neck to try and make the raised hairs go back down.

“Let me try again,” the girl said, pulling her hand from her face and looking at him determinedly, cheeks still pink with embarrassment. She stuck out her hand, and Peter automatically responded, shaking it in greeting.

“I’m Wanda,” she said with a smile that showed her teeth. “Nice to meet you, Peter.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, MJ is here!
> 
> Oh no, Wanda is also here!
> 
> Fun fact about the throwaway comment about MJ drinking her tea: I almost called it boba tea, because that’s what I’ve heard more often, but when looking up if it could be made as a hot tea rather than cold (I don’t drink tea at all and am completely unfamiliar with all the types), I discovered that it’s called boba tea more often on the West Coast, but in the East bubble tea is more common. So, the more you know.
> 
> Yes, I put a lot of research into the tiny bits, even if I don't explicitly use those bits lol. XD


	9. Chapter 9

Wanda was easy to talk to, Peter decided after an hour in just her presence. He learned that she had been quiet to begin with because she didn’t know him, but once they got to talking she was a good listener. She also allowed him to just _be_ , without constantly watching over him or around him for some threat, like just about everyone else he knew did. (Well, MJ didn’t, but that might be because she watched everything with a bland, almost apathetic expression. She might have been watching in that secret way of hers, but still he had met her through Ned, and he was pretty sure Ned liked her, and so it wasn’t really a reprieve when he was with her, because Ned was always there too.)

It was nice. And it was for this reason that he didn’t make a point of introducing her to Ned or anyone else from his family who popped by for random visits, because he didn’t want to scare her off. They would probably each run their own brand of invasive background checks, and she really didn’t need to be caught up in everything just because everyone he knew was ridiculously paranoid.

At first, Peter had supposed that they would be nothing more than situational friends, or good acquaintances in class. He wasn’t great at making new friends and didn’t have many, so he wasn’t even really sad about it, either – it was the expected norm.

But then the following class period after that awkward first introduction, the professor had passed around a signup sheet for a group project, and as they only knew each other, had assigned themselves to be in the same group. And then, because the numbers were off in the class, they were approved to keep it to a duo project rather than the minimum three to a group for everyone else. (Personally, Peter just thought the professor didn’t really care, but it suited him, so whatever.)

So that weekend, they met in the campus library to start their project.

They didn’t get much done – or anything at all, really – because about five minutes in Wanda had made some comment about American pizza being strange, and Peter had gone off in some speech about the merits of different toppings and how they affected it, as well as what regions of the US caused a change to how it was made, or the merits of the different sauces and what combinations were allowed with each, and what really constituted a pizza and not a flatbread, and it was all complete with hastily drawn graphs and charts as he spoke. Wanda had laughed humorously, and had made jokingly argumentative comments that she knew would rile him up, and honestly he let himself be riled when he figured out what she was doing. It was nice, to have this new friendship where they could tease and just _be_ , and so Peter ignored the buzzing of his Spidey sense any time she came close enough to touch.

After the project was completed with a solid A- for both of them, they no longer had an excuse to meet at the library after classes. But Wanda still invited him for coffee, insisting that he had to introduce all the American types to him, and what exactly was the difference between a cappuccino and a macchiato? And he didn’t feel as strongly about coffee types as he did pizza, but he grabbed the excuse to spend more time with her and took every chance he could, because it was different than every other part of his life.

“So, do you _like_ this girl?” Ned asked him with a smug little smile as they walked to their first period one day at the beginning of February.

“Who?” Peter asked distractedly, flipping through the flashcards in his hands. They had a test later that day that he felt incredibly unprepared for, and he was taking every chance he could get to study for it more, despite Ned telling him he would do fine on it, like he always did.

“ _Wanda_ ,” Ned emphasized. “The girl you’ve been going on coffee dates with for like, three weeks now. The girl you keep cancelling on me for. If you didn’t look so stupid in love all the time, I would think you were making her up for how she’s always occupying your free time.”

Peter stumbled, and tripped over a chunk of snow that had hardened into ice and was somehow still in the middle of the sidewalk for any poor schmuck to faceplant over. He picked himself up quickly, dusting his knees, and sputtered, “I’m not in love with her! And they’re not _dates_ ; we just – hang out. We’re just friends.”

Ned snorted. “No, _we_ are just friends, Peter,” he told him. “You don’t look like this because of _our_ friendship.”

“Well, I’m _used_ to you, you jerk,” Peter said, shoving him lightly. “Wanda is a _new_ friend, and it’s – exciting.”

Ned raised an eyebrow. “So you _don’t_ want to ask her to be your valentine?” he said innocently.

“First of all, she’s from Sokovia, and they don’t celebrate the same holidays we do,” Peter said, raising a finger. The effect was lost, because he was raising it from the confines of his mitten, but the point was still the same. “Secondly, _no_. Valentine’s Day is stupid. I _really_ just see her as a friend. If I had even a _little_ crush on her, I would tell you. Or at the very least, introduce you.” And then he had a sudden idea accompanied by a flash of insight, and he continued, “You know, like how you introduced MJ to me. She hasn’t mentioned anything about Valentine’s, so when are _you_ going to get on that?”

Ned sputtered, caught off guard by the sudden turnaround. “She’s not – she’s just a friend!”

Peter snorted. “I’m oblivious Ned, but I’m not _blind_ ,” he told him. “You so _obviously_ adore her, the only reason I can think that she hasn’t called you out on it is because she likes you back and is maybe blinded by that herself.”

Ned’s face transformed to look suddenly hopeful, rather than embarrassed or caught off guard. “D’you really think she does?” he asked hopefully.

“Sure she does,” Peter said honestly, and then teased, “Why else would a girl be around you this long? I bet if you asked her out for Valentine’s, she’d say yes.”

Ned didn’t say anything, but Peter could see his thoughts whirling behind his eyes, thinking of new ideas and possibilities. With a sigh of relief to himself that they had moved on past the subject of Wanda, he turned back to his flashcards, and kept practicing all the way to class.

And he had been honest with Ned, that he really didn’t see Wanda as a romantic prospect. Maybe in the beginning, when he’d first introduced himself, but as he got to know her more it just turned into something more platonic. And honestly, fuck anyone who said platonic relationships were impossible between a boy and a girl, because he honestly thought he was rocking it with this friendship, and he was certain that Wanda felt the same way.

It was just before Valentine’s Day, and they were drinking their new blends of coffee, when Wanda said randomly, “So, my brother is suspicious that I am around you all the time and he still hasn’t met you. He told me to invite you for dinner tomorrow night at our apartment.”

Peter choked a little on his coffee before catching himself and taking another sip to clear his throat. “Why would he be suspicious? We’re classmates.”

An unidentifiable look crossed her face for a moment just too short for him to identify, and he filed it away for later to evaluate further. An amused smirk took over her face instead, and she said, “I think it’s mostly an excuse. He does not have many friends of his own, and based on what I’ve told him about you, he likely thinks you will be a good one, now that I’ve laid all the groundwork for him.”

Peter snorted a laugh. “I’m under no delusions – I’m sure you’ve told him just _terrible_ things about me. I’m rotten to the core.”

Wanda groaned a little at the reference to the Disney Channel movie she had admitted to liking the week before, which he had then taken upon himself to go watch as soon as he could. It was utterly cheesy and obviously American, and Peter found it humorous that it was one of her favorite movies that she had seen thus far in America. Thus, he took every opportunity he could to bring it up or reference it or hum some of the songs from it because they were so _easy_ to get stuck in your head.

“You two will get along, _great_ , I’m sure,” Wanda lamented, looking like she might already regret her decision.

“You just make it too easy!” Peter insisted with a laugh. “His name’s Pietro, right?” Honestly, he only remembered that because it was a variant of his own name. Otherwise, without seeing a face, it was hard to match in his head. “Sure, dinner sounds great. I’ll have to let my Pops know that I won’t be there for chili night.”

Another look, one almost like worry, crossed over Wanda’s face before it was covered by polite apology and regret. “Oh, you don’t have to cancel plans with your family,” she insisted quickly. “It would just be Pietro and me – whatever day works for you.”

“Nah, that’s alright,” Peter dismissed. “We have chili night every week. If they found out I was cancelling because I made new friends, they’d probably shove me out the door themselves.”

Another one of those unidentifiable looks – looks which were becoming more common as time went on (or maybe he was just noticing them now because he was getting to know her better) – before she said, “Alright, then. Let’s plan on seven o’ clock tomorrow, then? Or is that too early? I know Americans have dinner earlier than Europeans.”

“Seven is fine,” Peter assured her, quirking a smile. “I’m still a college student and have zero in terms of an _actual_ schedule.”

And so it was a few minutes after seven the next night when Peter knocked on the door at the address Wanda had given him, rubbing his hands together to conserve warmth after the bus ride over. Wanda and her brother lived just outside of campus, on a street quieter than the one Peter occupied with its numerous parties and sororities and fraternities that didn’t care what day of the week it was, only that they were old enough to drink and drink as much as they wanted.

Ned had waggled his eyebrows suggestively at him when Peter had told him his plans for the night, instantly regretting it when Ned continued his insistence that he wanted Wanda to be his girlfriend. Ever since MJ had accepted Ned’s proposal to a date with possible dat _ing_ in the future, he had been unbearably over the moon about it and wanted to spread the romance to everyone. Peter had quickly insisted that Wanda’s brother would be there the whole time, and that after dinner he was going to meet with Deadpool for patrol again. (Peter hadn’t made definite plans with Deadpool, but considering the fact that Wade was still hanging around New York every night for him, he didn’t think that he would be lacking company when he took to the rooftops.)

Either Peter had gotten lost in his thoughts and lost track of time, or it was less than three seconds before the door swung open, and Peter looked up to see a face that was definitely male, but also definitely had enough similar features with Wanda that Peter knew instantly that this was her brother Pietro. He offered a hesitant smile to the boy’s own blank expression.

“Hi,” he drew out the word a little in his hesitation. “I’m Peter?” he winced mentally when it came out sounding like a question.

Then Pietro smiled abruptly, and there was still something there, something evaluating him in a way that made Peter think that Pietro was seeing more than Peter thought he would, but the smile was friendly enough that Peter allowed himself to relax a little bit.

“Sup,” Pietro greeted, stepping back a little and keeping the door open in wordless invitation for Peter to come in. Peter stepped inside, jumping a little when the door closed behind him and his Spidey sense hummed louder in warning. He ignored it, because he could hear Wanda moving around in the back of the apartment, in the kitchen, as Pietro continued speaking. “Is that what you Americans say, when you greet each other for dinner? Because it is short for ‘supper’?”

Peter laughed a little at the earnestness in the question, but it was more of an endeared laugh than one of amusement. “No – I mean, kind of. You _can_. But it’s because if you slur together ‘what’s up’ really fast and forget the first syllable, it comes out sounding like ‘sup’.”

“Americans,” Pietro muttered with resentful confusion.

Peter laughed a little. “Yeah, English is weird,” he agreed, following the white-haired boy in the direction of the kitchen. “I think I’ve seen you on campus before – what are you studying?”

“Just generals,” Pietro responded. “I’m not sure what I want to do yet.”

Peter nodded agreeably. “I feel that. I had the hardest time choosing between Biophysics and Biochem, and eventually I just decided to fuck it and go with Biophysics. If I change my mind or get bored, I can always change my major.” They got to the kitchen then, where Peter saw Wanda spooning what looked like some sort of sour cream mixture into a pot on the stove.

“Hi, Peter! The Paprikash is almost done,” Wanda called without looking at them, stirring the mixture in the pot. “After it’s mixed it just needs to simmer for a few minutes, because I underestimated the time it would take to make this on American stove.”

_We must get some sour cream for the Paprikash._

Peter blinked as the thought trailed through his mind like wispy traces of fog, and shook his head to rid himself of it. For a moment, it was like Wanda had been talking in his head, but obviously Wanda already had the sour cream for the Paprikash, because she was currently mixing it in with the rest of the contents of the pot.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said easily, pretending that he hadn’t just had one of those breakaway memory-thoughts, because obviously his mind was playing tricks on him now. Even his Spidey sense was getting in on it, making his nerves stand on end just slightly enough to alert him that something was there, that something was off. But his Spidey sense had been wacking out for weeks, so he ignored it with an ease he’d gotten used to by now.

“I did bring beer!” he volunteered, reaching for the backpack on his shoulders. “It’s non-alcoholic because I’m not old enough to buy it myself yet, but it _is_ supposedly Sokovian. But take that promise with a grain of salt.”

Wanda looked at him with something – again, unidentifiable – in her eyes, before smiling with amusement as Pietro accepted the bottles that Peter proffered to him and put them at the place settings at the table.

“We’ll keep that in mind,” she promised.

***

Peter woke up with a mild headache, and cracked his eyes open just enough to glare at the sunlight creeping through the blinds for causing him his troubles so early in the morning. He rolled away from his direction facing the window, slapping around the bedside table until he found his phone, turning it on to see that it was just after ten in the morning.

Not too bad, he supposed, closing his eyes again but not having any intention really of going back to sleep. Already his nerves were waking up, preparing to get up and get going with the day.

It had been a nice night, having dinner with Wanda and Pietro. He’d stayed much later than he’d expected, because he got along with Pietro just as well as he did Wanda, and it was easy to play off of each other, the three of them. Dinner had turned into helping with cleanup had turned into eating strawberries dipped in sour cream and brown sugar for dessert had turned into more drinks, this time with _actual_ alcohol involved, because Pietro looked old enough that he didn’t get carded at this one shop they’d found and Peter had developed a pleasant buzz from it, enough that he dismissed the Spiderman suit at the bottom of his backpack for another night, sure that Wade would understand.

He was a little dehydrated now, he realized, and that must have been the reason for his headache. He generally stayed away from alcohol altogether, so it was no surprise that the one bottle had been enough to cause this. At least it wasn’t the true hangovers he’d heard about and seen both in TV and in real life. It was just an annoying buzz, more than anything.

He didn’t realize that he’d begun to drift a little, caught halfway between sleep and wakefulness, until his phone vibrated where he still held it in his hand, and he startled awake, seeing that the one calling was _DP_ before he swiped to answer.

“’Lo?” he greeted, mouth still dry and sticky with sleep.

“Petey! Just making sure you’re not dead. You never showed up last night and didn’t respond to texts. Gasp! Did you go to a party? ARE YOU HUNGOVER?”

“If I was really hungover, shouting that last bit would be a dick move, Pool,” Peter sighed, not really irritated but mostly amused at Wade’s (mostly) unapologetic assholery. He yawned and said, “No, I’m not hungover, but I just woke up. I thought I texted you last night?”

“Nope,” Wade said, popping the P.

“Oh. Sorry, man. I had dinner with friends and then ended up talking late. Didn’t have the energy to go out on patrol.”

“Double gasp!” Wade exclaimed. “Our very own Peter Parker, taking _care_ of himself, without someone else having to force him?! This is a day that will go down in infamy!”

“Yeah, it probably wouldn’t have been safe for me to go swinging around, anyway – I got a little buzzed,” Peter admitted, sitting up in bed, letting his blanket pool around his hips. He scratched his chest absentmindedly. “And I’m not used to alcohol like, at all.”

“You mean you _haven’t_ been partaking of the wonders of college parties?” Wade said in faux amazement. “Petey-pie, this is the best time of your life! You’re supposed to be taking advantage of that!”

“You know I haven’t,” Peter responded dryly. “And you know, getting drunk and throwing up with my mask on does _not_ sound appealing, funny enough.”

“True _that_ ,” Wade agreed, clearly having had experience with just that on his own. “Well, as a responsible adult, I will have to train you in the ways of consuming your alcohol. All the best kinds, and the worst. Get some variety, teach you to be a proper connoisseur.”

“Wade, I don’t think anyone has _ever_ accused you of being a responsible adult,” Peter said sardonically.

“Okay, you’re a hundred percent correct on that one, _but_! I have held your hair back – metaphorically speaking of course, because your hair isn’t long enough to hold back unless I’m like, holding your whole head too, and that’s just not practical _or_ helpful – when you’ve been stoned out of your pumpkin!”

Peter was about to counter that with a statement of his own, when the merc’s last words caught up to him and he paused in confusion. “My ‘pumpkin’?”

“Yeah! You know, like the phrase ‘stoned out of your gourd’? A pumpkin is a gourd, and it’s a word that’s _way_ more fun to say. Pumpkin. Pum-p-kin. Pump-kin. Puuum…”

“Yeah, okay,” Peter cut off Wade trying out the word on his lips. “But a pumpkin is a gourd, but a gourd isn’t always a pumpkin. They’re not interchangeable.”

“I know _that_ , Petey-pumpkin!” Wade exclaimed. “But I like saying pumpkin instead so I’m going to take it. Pumpkins don’t get appreciated after the holidays. Hashtag pumpkin rights! Bring it back!”

Peter sighed, not wanting to get into that whole discussion at the moment. “You want to meet up for lunch? I’m in the mood for shitty tacos.”

Wade _actually_ gasped that time, rather than just saying the word. “Don’t you ever call tacos shitty in my hearing again!” he demanded. “But yes. I will meet you at Anna’s cart in an hour. Don’t be late, or I’ll think you’re kidnapped and send out a search party! With hats. And maracas. Anyway, byyye!” He made a few kissing sounds into the phone’s speaker before Peter could speak, and then he heard the rapid beeping that meant the merc had hung up.

But that was alright, Peter thought with amusement, tossing his phone to the side and getting out of bed. Wade knew it would be about an hour for him to get ready and swing over there already, because they’d made plans like this often enough. And as much fun as he’d had with Wanda and Pietro the night before, he always looked forward to hanging out with Wade.

Even when he was being a complete idiot, he thought – lovingly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if I will end up saying this in the fic, so I'll tell you now, and if it's included I'll just delete this note:
> 
> This takes place in 2016. So, when I use the phrase "just before Valentine's Day", I imagine it as in a couple days before. Upon looking at the dates, I noticed that this would have made the twelfth a Friday. That fit well enough, and any sort of family dinner it would make sense to have on a Saturday or Sunday. But because Bucky and Steve are BuckyandSteve, having Valentine's Day dinner plans with their son would be weird, with him usually off at college. And so they would have normal dinners on Saturday, whenever Peter can make it. (I mostly just included the bit about family dinner plans as a place card for myself to keep track of the days, tbh.) So, Peter has dinner with Pietro and Wanda on Saturday night, February 13th. And then when Peter asks Deadpool about meeting up for taco lunch, it is therefore February 14th, or Valentine's Day. 
> 
> TL;DR Peter thoughtlessly asked Deadpool on a not-date lunch date _on Valentine's Day_.
> 
> And it won't end up being like a huge plot point or anything, but it just ended up working out perfectly like that, haha. It's pre-Spideypool, anyway.
> 
> ALSO there's no romantic relationship between Peter and either Maximoff. That's just Ned trying to push him into romance because he doesn't know how else to interpret the relationship between Peter and a girl he's never met. It will never turn into anything. Promise.


End file.
